


Weightless - Light the Shadows on Your Face

by bellinaball



Series: Weight [5]
Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dark, M/M, Sequel, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-12
Packaged: 2017-10-26 00:30:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellinaball/pseuds/bellinaball
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the time between the main story of Weightless and its epilogue, the inevitable happens. Just as inevitably, it doesn't quite work out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to explore how Kurt was finally able to have a healthy romantic relationship with someone after what he'd gone through, but it ended up being very, very involved if I didn't want to just handwave all the emotions involved. Considering that the healing process was the entire point of the story, that definitely would have been less than ideal. It wound up becoming much longer than I ever expected, but at least Kurt didn't have to wait decades to have something like this!

It wasn't fair, Finn thought as he sat on the small balcony outside his room. One of the first barely-warm days of spring was upon them, and after a particularly wet, dreary winter he'd been itching to go outside. The winter had been a busy one: his senior year of high school, the birth of his sisters, and the need to handle far too many of the accompanying extra duties himself. The oppressive weather had done something to Kurt's mind, and no matter how Finn prodded him he'd slept away much of the cold spell like a cat in a sunbeam. Their parents had tolerated that near-hibernation in good spirits. Finn, forced to pick up the slack, had been far less enthusiastic.

All Kurt had done ever since Ann and Grace were brought home from the hospital was to sleep, occasionally rouse himself, and then cuddle with their tiny forms. They loved him just like animals did, and would quiet down from cries over anything but physical needs when he came close. That discovery was the only thing that had gotten Finn through the winter without blowing up entirely. He was stressed and more than a little lonely as the cliques in his new school closed ranks, and those shrieking babies had lit a fuse.

Even so, he almost preferred that period of stress. In the previous summer he'd talked with Rachel about confusing, awkward feelings. She hadn't had much to offer besides "maybe it'll happen, maybe it won't." Yeah, thanks, Rachel. Now the days were longer, the snow was melting, and everything was coming back to life.

Including those feelings he really wished weren't there.

"Hey!" Kurt said brightly as he dropped out of the sky and stopped level with Finn's balcony.

Finn resisted the urge to clutch his chest. There was no way Kurt could know he'd been thinking about him, right? "Uh, hey," he managed after swallowing a few times. "Good flight?" The steady thrum of those huge, gleaming wings was like a strong wind and he began to feel a little chilly. Maybe it would be a good excuse to go back inside.

"It feels so good to be out again!" Kurt said, flipping over himself in the air. He stretched and smiled. "Next winter I just want snow. None of this freezing rain and fog." Finn couldn't help but zip his hoodie completely closed when the flapping continued, and Kurt looked abashed. He touched down on the balcony, letting his wings hang over the edge, and sat on the railing. "I'm sorry, I was practically making a hurricane in your face. You look like you're about to catch your death of cold, Finn. Go inside, warm up."

"I'm fine," Finn said shortly. His own cheeks and nose were probably pink from the chill; it was sunny and above freezing, but just barely so. Blood rushed Kurt's face as well, but he didn't have that splash of color. Instead, as his (glowing, amazing, perfect) blood flowed right below his skin, it was almost as if the sun kept catching his cheekbones no matter how he turned.

Crap. Crap crap crap.

This had been _gone_ when Kurt was being obnoxious about blowing off chores and Finn was ready to scream. Of course, it had helped that Kurt had been closed in his room for most of the winter and Finn had seldom been around him. Now they were talking again. Finn saw him all the time, with that body that he hadn't liked before but _really_ liked now. And despite what Rachel had said, Finn had this low-level feeling that it would be wrong to act on anything. So as the looming spring made his blood flow again, he wished it would go back to that maple syrup-slowness of winter.

"Oh, you're not fine, you probably feel like a block of ice," Kurt said, leaning forward to put the back of his hand against Finn's cheek. His skin was velvet-wrapped fire and Finn jerked away. Kurt blinked. "Sorry," he said awkwardly. "I didn't mean to... I mean. We'd been okay with each other," he said in a thick, wounded voice and seemed to fold in on himself. He shot Finn one hurt, sidelong glance, mumbled something about flying a little more, and then leapt off the balcony and left Finn alone.

"Shit," Finn groaned as he rested his forehead against the railing and wondered exactly how inappropriate it would be to call Rachel.

* * *

"Hey, Rachel," Finn said into his phone.

"Finn, hi!" she said enthusiastically back. They'd kept up all year, which was super nice, even if sometimes she got a little crazy with college talks. She was trying to figure out which major was best to have in her pocket before she applied to law school. Personally, Finn thought she was looking way too many steps ahead. Even so, as her once-boyfriend, now-friend, it seemed to be Finn's job to just say "okay" a lot in the middle of her monologues about the future. "I didn't expect you to call today. What a nice surprise."

"Uh, can I ask you for some advice?"

"Of course!" There was a short pause. It sounded like she was climbing onto her bed, probably to arrange herself comfortably for a long, involved session of sharing her wisdom. "About what?"

"Kurt."

"Is he okay?" she asked so quickly that the words ran together.

"Yeah. I mean, I think I kind of hurt his feelings, but he's okay. That's what I'm calling about."

She sighed. He could hear her flop against the pillows. "Finn, what did you do?"

Finn shot a wary glance at the bathroom door. The span behind it was incredibly spacious; it had to be in order to hold that tiled-room-with-a-showerhead that they'd sized for Kurt. Even if Kurt didn't also have his door closed on the far end, he probably wouldn't be able to hear Finn. Probably. Still, to be on the safe side, Finn spoke quietly. "You know how when you visited, we talked about... stuff?"

"We talked about a lot of 'stuff,' Finn. What do you mean?"

He sighed. Don't make him say it. "You know... about how with how he is now, we both kind of see him... differently?"

"Oh," Rachel said knowingly. She sounded intrigued. "Ooh. Did you make a move? Was it a big dramatic gesture? Something simple and heartfelt? I want to know all the sordid details. Every last one of them." Boy, between her plans that in no way allowed for living in a tiny little mountain town, and his plans that very much did, she really had given up on him. Now Finn was like a little doll for her to play with.

"Um. He tried to touch my cheek to see if I was cold, and I freaked out and jerked away."

Rachel was silent, but he could _see_ her judging him.

"And now I'm pretty sure he thinks that I have a... you know, _problem_ with him again." Instead of walking around with a half-mast _problem_ whenever he heard the shower running, Finn added to himself with a silent groan. Why couldn't he be like Artie? Artie just thought Angels were generally kind of neat. Or Mike. Mike had only really ever talked about female Angels. But no, he had to be a _Puck._

"You're talking to me about this," Rachel finally said after a long pause, "instead of him?"

"I was freaked out. I needed advice!"

"All right, I understand that, Finn. But now you're letting all those worst assumptions crystallize inside his head. He's going to be convinced that any tiny, invisible little kernel of homophobia left inside you has suddenly returned. You're probably making him feel unwanted and disgusting, and he didn't have any intentions past—"

"I get it!" Finn said loudly, but then instantly hunched in on himself and hoped he hadn't been heard. "Okay. So I need to talk to him. What should I say?"

"Well, apologize. Explain yourself."

Realizing what that would entail sent a frisson of nerves down Finn's spine. "Um. I can't do that, Rachel."

She sounded terribly annoyed. "Why not?"

"Because then he'll know I think he's hot," Finn whispered just loud enough to carry over the line.

Her annoyance only grew. "Didn't you already kiss him?"

"Well. Yeah. But I think he thinks I got over it. What happens if I tell him and I just mess everything up? I mean, we're only a couple of doors apart. And I'm kinda planning to be here for a _long_ time." Maybe he could kick Grace out of her room and stick her up here, and bunk next to Ann on the second floor. It'd be a little breathing room, anyway.

"Oh, and letting him think that you find him too disgusting to touch isn't going to mess things up?" There was more noise over the line; she was flopping over again on her mattress. "I know you have a complicated history, but there's _far_ more future ahead than those years behind you. You've chosen to live somewhere very isolated, with few people in your life. You really need to think how you want to deal with all of them."

"I'm trying!" he protested. "It's just... complicated."

"What would you do if Kurt walked in right now, stark naked and willing?"

Finn went crimson. He made the mistake of letting himself picture that, the pale body with the pale _wings_ framing it, and felt blood rush to his groin with a speed he'd seldom experienced. "Oh God," he mumbled, and couldn't resist the urge to press his palm against his sudden erection for at least a hint of friction. "Uh, Rachel, I should probably—"

"You're not getting off the phone," she instantly said. Her voice had a husky edge to it.

After processing what her tone sounded like, Finn jerked back from the phone and made a face at it. "Oh, ew, Rachel!" he said when he managed to bring it back to his ear. "Stop it!"

"Stop what?" she asked breathily.

"Whatever you are doing! Stop it! Stop... thinking stuff!"

She whined a little, but he heard her shift positions again. "Well, I'm very sorry if someone I still find very attractive is talking about starting up romantic relations with someone else I find very attractive. My mind wandered. It's only natural!" There was an awkward, lingering pause. "Tell me how it goes?"

"Ew!"

"Your _talk_ , Finn. Your apology. I just want to make sure everything is all right with you two, all right?"

He grumbled and flopped back on his bed. "Yeah, okay. Will do."

"And, um, let me know if you start anything."

"Bye, Rachel," Finn said in a monotone and clicked 'end.' A moment later his phone buzzed at him. He tiredly lifted it above his face to see the incoming text from Rachel.

 _It just makes me happy to think about him being happy! :) :) :)_

Happy, huh, Finn repeated darkly to himself. Rachel was probably convinced that the two of them would start up some epic romance that would leave Kurt in a perpetual state of bliss. Maybe picturing him being so happy after all the crap he'd gone through was what let Rachel finally start fantasizing. If Kurt was happy, it meant that it was _finally_ okay to think about him like that.

Maybe he should stop trying to pick apart Rachel's behavior and talk to Kurt before he felt any worse, Finn corrected.

Well, this was gonna suck. He took a deep breath, pushed himself off his bed, and walked out to the hallway. It seemed more formal to approach Kurt's outer door than the one to their shared bathroom, and this seemed like the sort of talk that demanded formality. Did it need a suit? Maybe he should turn around, go back in his room, and put on his suit.

"Stop it," Finn muttered, and resisted the urge to actually slap himself on the cheek. At least his fear had gotten rid of most of his erection. He gathered his courage and with one sharp, sure knock, asked if he could come inside. There was no answer. Finn waited a few beats, tried again, and frowned. Was Kurt really that mad at him? Ignoring him was a pretty big deal. He should probably go inside and talk to him before he got any further into thinking that Finn thought he was gross, Finn decided, and opened the door. It was cold inside; the balcony door was standing just ajar.

Kurt was still out flying. Great. He'd worked up his nerve for nothing. Finn groaned, sank down onto the bed, and promptly stood and took the chair in the corner, instead.

Eventually Kurt returned and shot Finn a cautious, pained look when he came inside and closed the door behind him. "Finn."

"Hey. Uh, we need to talk."

"About what?" Kurt asked. He folded in on himself, his arms coming together like origami and wings looking suddenly delicate. "There's nothing to talk about, really."

"There is. I didn't jerk away from you—" Kurt turned, clearly hurt, and Finn started again more loudly. "I didn't jerk away because I didn't want you to touch me, okay? I jerked away because... because I did want it. That's all. I didn't want you thinking I had a problem with you. Because it's not that. Okay, bye."

"What?" Kurt asked, and Finn groaned as he stopped halfway to the door. He would have really loved it if he could have made it safely out of there without any further conversation. "But...."

"Come on," Finn nearly whimpered. "Don't make me say it. You already knew this. I kissed you."

"No, I didn't know this," Kurt said in clear shock. He looked utterly bewildered at their encounters in the basement being brought up more than a year after the fact. "Because... do I really need to remind you? We already went through this once and you are not attracted to me. Otherwise...." He shot a distrustful glance at the door, and quieted his voice regardless. "Otherwise, when you were touching me, my pants would have been off. Remember? You didn't want to see _me._ And clearly, your infatuation with the idea of _what_ I am would have faded since then."

"That wasn't what happened!" Finn protested. He saw Kurt's eyes widen with concern and shut the door so their parents wouldn't hear. "Maybe that's what it looked like to you. And I was crappy with explaining everything. So, sorry."

"What?" Kurt asked in obvious and total confusion. "Um, I'm pretty sure I remember you touching _these_ and me having to do a lot of rinsing in the sink. My clothes were on."

"That wasn't what...." Finn blinked. "Hey, your blood vanishes after a little bit, right? Why doesn't your, um, stuff? Do you think if you waited longer, it'd vanish too? Then you wouldn't have to do laundry."

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Kurt nearly yelled. He looked genuinely angry. "What the hell was going on all that time when you were touching me, Finn?"

"You like Angel girls," Finn said helplessly after a few seconds of fumbling for anything to say. "You still do. And you think they're people. So you can feel stuff toward... you know, someone who's the wrong sex if they're an Angel, and still think they're a person with feelings and a name and opinions." He saw Kurt mouth the word 'wrong' and groaned. "Sorry. Not what I meant. The... the different sex. From how you normally... oh, come on! Stop making this so hard! You like Angels with boobs!"

"Where is this going, Finn?" Kurt asked in a tight, tired voice. "I really hadn't expected to be dredging up the past like this, and nothing about this conversation makes any sense."

"I screwed up back then," Finn said when he'd made himself walk across the room and sit back down in the chair. He felt less ready to bolt, and maybe that would force him to be calmer. "At first I was just relieved that you were home. After that, all I could think about was what you told me about what happened when you were gone. I just needed to be a good guy and help you." He risked looking up at Kurt. The shadows of memory he'd expected to see were indeed darkening his eyes. "But then I started feeling... well. You remember how the talks in school about Angels went. I was one of the people saying I liked both, like you and Rachel did. And I do."

"But my pants were on," Kurt said softly, finally, for a response. He seemed lost.

"Because I... we had the whole thing with...." Now Finn was the one to fold in on himself. It didn't work well. He was so big, it was like he couldn't possibly shrink small enough to fall below someone's notice. "I felt that stuff because you were an Angel, now, but you hate being one. So I didn't push anything because it'd just remind you of that. Even though I really wanted to." He rubbed his hands over his face. It had all made sense back then. "And that was okay. Because you were still looking so happy when I touched your wings, and I didn't feel like I had to do anything because I was dating Santana, so, you know... we were both covered." He risked looking up and saw Kurt staring at him like a statue. It didn't help Finn's nerves.

His hands clenched and unclenched uselessly at his loose-fitting jeans. "Then, well. Um. You know what happened to you that night. And it just wasn't enough to keep doing what we'd been doing. You'd gotten so hurt, and no one was letting me be around you. I knew I had to be closer. _Had_ to be closer. So I finally, well... yeah." Finn stared at his jeans as he clutched at them. He could feel the heat of their kiss against his mouth. "And, you know. Sorry. When I did that, it was about me. It should have been about you. You were getting over everything and I just added something else on. So, sorry."

"But I...." Kurt sank down onto the edge of his bed and looked positively bewildered. "Ever since we got here, we've never done _that_ again," he said, referring to the times when Finn's hands had gently stroked him to what looked like the happiest, most carefree place Finn had ever seen on anyone. "I knew you felt something, once. But I thought you'd gotten over it. We... we walk the dog. We argue over video games. You stuck beef jerky in my sock drawer to gross me out, for God's sake."

Finn managed to smile a little. That had been pretty funny. He'd just been thinking of the meaty smell making Kurt sick; he hadn't also considered how it would linger. Laundry that week was quite a production. "I. Yeah. Sort of. Not totally. Rachel and I talked about you last summer, and...." The way he trailed off was enough of a sign, and Kurt looked overwhelmed again. Finn forced his voice toward lightness as he continued. "But then you were annoying all winter, and I was busy with the girls and school. So I forgot. Then everything just sort of... woke up, I guess."

Kurt sat silently for a very long time. Finn wanted to speak up and just barely managed to bite his tongue. "So, just so I'm clear on this: when you were... touching me. You actually would have preferred for me to not be... I mean, you would have rather that I...." He swallowed, and although he tried to say "naked" he could only mouth the word.

The suggestion sent another jolt of energy through Finn. He flushed dark when he felt himself growing hard again, and tried to adjust his position on the chair to hide it. It was difficult, though. The shock of what Finn had told him left Kurt adorably rumpled. He'd run his hands through his hair, his clothes were askew from moving up, down, and about, and the his wings were ruffled just enough to give an indication of how many perfect white feathers rested there. "I just wanted to let you know that I didn't have a _problem_ with you touching me," Finn said. "So... you know. You wouldn't be mad. Okay, bye," he said with a sudden panic and ran. He bunched his shirt at his crotch even though he knew what that said, and locked his door when he fled to his room.

Those ruffled wings, Finn thought as he unzipped and pulled free his leaking cock. He was in the global company of mere thousands just from being around a pair, and they belonged to someone who _wanted_ to be in that house. Who _wanted_ to be around him. That put him in the company of dozens, and most of the people who'd purchased Angels to save them would never dream of touching them in that way.

So that might leave only him, Finn Hudson, as the sole man on earth who had an Angel around him as an equal. Someone who might not feel obligated to have sex, but who would _want_ to have sex of his own free will. Most people would probably say that he was the luckiest guy on the planet.

Instead, all Finn could think about was that shocked expression on Kurt's face.

He reached for a glob of lotion and hissed at a moment's chill, but that soon faded. His hand stroked firmly up and down the shaft, speeding with desperation he hadn't expected to feel. He knew he was one of the people who felt these effects, but that was normal. That was the majority. What he hadn't expected was for them to die conveniently down for months and then come rushing back to make up lost time. Now he'd told Kurt, everything was out in the open, and Finn had the very real feeling that things could fall completely apart. That only made his desperation grow. The more all-consuming this temporary pleasure was, the better a job it would do at forcing out any fear.

Finn sank onto the edge of his bed as his hand pistoned himself, groaning. An abrupt realization made him stare at the bathroom door: he'd locked the outer door, but not that one. Kurt could walk in. He could open the door, see what Finn was doing, and slowly walk across the room to sink down on his knees and....

"Fuck," Finn wheezed as his head tilted back and stretched the skin of his throat. Kurt's mouth had been so hot. He could imagine it tracing words up his neck. Kurt's fingers were long and slender, and would be so pale against Finn's cock. He'd take over working Finn as Finn fell back against the bed, helpless and overcome with pleasure....

"Oh God," Finn mumbled as he felt his balls pull up tight and heavy. He had to make the last seconds count. Kurt on top of him. Wings spread. Huge. Moving. Making a living ceiling across his vision. Kurt wings Kurt wings kurtwingskurtwings _kurt_.

He groaned heavily as he spilled into his palm, and slowly milked himself with his other hand until he felt the sensations slide away from pleasure and toward post-orgasm sensitivity. Finn wiped his hand clean with a convenient tissue, threw it on the carpet without bothering to aim for the trash can, and sank completely down upon his bed. His cock softened slowly, falling like the path of a sundial, and still his door stayed closed. Eventually he tucked himself in and zipped up.

 _Fuck._ If only he hadn't reacted like that on the balcony, he never would have had to say anything.

They could have just kept to the status quo for fifty or sixty years, easy.


	2. Chapter 2

Eventually it was time for dinner. It would be hell, Finn was pretty sure. He waited until he heard Kurt's door open and close, so at least they wouldn't face each other alone on their third-floor landing, and counted down a minute until he went to join his family. The sight of their parents filled Finn with fresh guilt. They'd probably just put down the girls for a nap and thought they would have a nice dinner with their _sons_ , not with one boy who'd nearly been driven to tears of frustration during an argument and another who exploded from frustration all over his hand.

"This looks wonderful, Carole," he heard Kurt say. His voice was clear and measured. "Thank you."

Finn tried to smile at the plate in front of him as he sat down. It was pasta with something piled on top of it. He guessed it smelled okay. There were very few days when his stomach didn't feel like a black hole, but that meal would be hard to force down. The three of them had large plates with huge, heaping helpings, while Kurt had a small one that looked sized for a child. He might not even finish all of that. Finn wished he only had that much in front of him. "Yeah, looks good," Finn said when he realized that his mother was waiting for some comment on the meal she'd made.

Burt crunched loudly down on some sourdough bread as they began eating and asked Finn if he wanted some. Finn shook his head and tried to dig into what he did have. He just had to make a good show of it and then he could be free to... to go back upstairs with Kurt. Oh God, oh God, everything was going to blow up in his face, it was just a matter of when.

"You're not eating much, Kurt," Carole finally said. Finn looked up and tried not to act like that was his fault.

"I did a lot outside today," Kurt said. His fork traced lines through the pasta. "I was hungry afterward, so I had a handful of walnuts. I probably ruined my appetite. I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't worry," she said and reached over to pat Finn on the arm. "Finn'll eat whatever you don't have."

Just kill him now.

"I'm actually feeling kind of out of it," Finn said before anyone committed to putting more food on his plate. "It was great and all, but I'm done. Can I go?"

Carole stared at the small bit he'd eaten, looked at him with concern, and then put her hand against his forehead. It was hard not to jerk away again from the flashback to what Kurt had done earlier. "Oh Finn, are you sick? If it's bad, I could just go get a little knife—"

Burt cleared his throat, but when he spoke it was with good humor. "Carole, I'm sure Kurt doesn't _mind_ , but maybe you should let him decide when he's going to cut himself open?"

Every surface inside Finn's mouth seemed to be suddenly covered with blood. And not his own bitter blood that tasted of copper, but the sweet golden stuff that Kurt had been forced to give when Finn kept hurting himself during his first attempts at snowboarding. When Kurt had bled all over his leg that first time, he hadn't realized it would taste like... like cinnamon and sugar and apples and honey and whatever other good flavors could possibly come to mind. "I'd rather just lie down," he said without meeting anyone's eyes.

"Okay," Carole said. "I'll come check on you later, okay?"

He nodded and excused himself, and took the stairs just slow enough not to put the lie to his excuse of not feeling well. Then Finn closed his door, slumped onto his bed, and wondered what the hell was going to happen next.

When his door opened, long enough had passed that Finn honestly didn't know who might be there. He lifted his head off the pillow and tensed when he saw a distinctive silhouette filling the frame. No one else looked like they went everywhere with two feathery bodyguards. "Uh. Hey."

Kurt silently stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and regarded Finn without saying a word. After a moment's consideration, Finn sat up so that any unwanted physical responses wouldn't be so immediately apparent. Lying flat was definitely not the way to go. "I don't know what to say," Kurt finally announced.

"See," Finn said hopefully, "that's the whole thing. You don't have to say anything! Because what I said? Totally doesn't matter. Nothing has to change. At all. That would be so awesome if nothing changed."

"But everything has changed," Kurt said with disbelief. "All this time, you've been...."

"Not all this time," Finn corrected. "Like I said, you bugged me last winter. And besides, I was too stressed to think of anything but school."

That didn't seem to appease him. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Kurt asked.

"Nothing? Seriously, I only told you so you wouldn't think I had a problem with you and be hurt over it! Rachel told me I had to!" Finn hesitated at Kurt's arched eyebrow. "Um, I sort of called Rachel earlier."

"Oh my God," Kurt muttered. "I knew _she_ felt... but she's not _around_ , and...." He started pacing. And of course, of _course_ , Kurt was ruffled when he paced. Finn kind of loved how the feathers looked when they got so fluffy, and wanted to cry over his stupid, stupid brain because of it. "All that time?" Kurt finally asked. "When you were touching me?"

"Not the first few times," Finn admitted after a short pause. "When you came back, after Burt had been so worried about what might happen, after when you told me what did happen... I mean... I couldn't think of you like that." Kurt had been the guy who'd suffered as much as a person _could_ suffer. He zoned out in the middle of conversations, cried at night when he was deep asleep, and acted like Finn was attacking him when he was only trying to wake him up. No one decent would be attracted to anyone in that state, they'd only want to protect them.

"And after the first few times?" Kurt asked shakily.

He really had just wanted to make Kurt feel good. _Nothing_ in Kurt's life seemed to feel good any more. He cared about clothes? Too bad! He had to give most of them away; the ones he did keep, he was forced to hack up. He cared about singing? Well, the school's not going to let him back, so no New Directions for him! Dreams about living in New York, going to school there, and making it big? Never gonna happen!

It was pretty much the definition of heartbreaking. Hearing that the wings made Kurt feel good when nothing else seemed to, well, it was a natural offer to make. And that very first time, when he'd touched one and felt its warm, strong mass in his hands... Kurt had freaked out after just a stroke or two. He'd told Finn to stop. It was a perfectly timed distraction that stopped Finn from processing just how amazing that moment was.

Then they did it again. Finn was entirely focused on any signs of distress, in case Kurt freaked out a second time and needed to stop. But they didn't stop. Kurt _liked_ it the whole time. He threw his head back, arched his back, and began to make these low, needy sounds....

Finn swallowed. By the third time he started off with a focus on those sounds, rather than concern over Kurt needing to stop. It had been a good thing that Kurt was so consumed by his pleasure than he'd never noticed Finn's reaction to him. It had made things so much easier. But now Finn had flat-out _told_ Kurt what he'd felt, and he wanted to know what had happened between them.

Aware that Kurt had been staring at him for all the time needed to dig through his memories, Finn swallowed again and said, "I was thinking that you were... you are...." Great. He'd really tried to explain himself and still couldn't find the right words.

Thankfully, Kurt didn't push him. He let out a short noise of disbelief and hopped up onto the edge of Finn's dresser. "And you never told me? Everything we were doing was pretty different from what I thought it was, Finn! That's not... not...."

"Not cool?" Finn suggested, and flinched a little when Kurt nodded fiercely. "But is it bad?" he asked. "I mean, it's not like you thought I liked you and I didn't. _That'd_ be painful, right? You thought I didn't like you and I did. Do. Did. It's, um, a compliment. Not an insult."

"Did like, or do like?" Kurt asked, and made another disbelieving noise when Finn sheepishly clarified 'do like.' "Oh my God." He stared at his knees for a while, and then abruptly looked back up. Fire was in his eyes. He hopped down, stormed across the room, and shoved Finn back a step. "You asshole! That all _meant_ something to you, didn't it?"

"In a good way," Finn said helplessly. Kurt used to like him! This would have gone _so_ much easier if he still did. Bad timing sucked so hard. "Seriously, we don't have to make anything of this. Okay? It's all behind us. And I'll put this... whatever it is behind me."

"It's not all behind me, Finn," Kurt said with tears standing in his eyes. "I thought... back then, I let myself think...." He screwed his eyes shut and shook his head. "At first I thought it meant something."

Finn was so far beyond confused. Kurt had just _accused_ him of that! And now he was saying he already knew it? If Kurt was gonna yell at him, it was only fair that Kurt made more sense.

"Back then, in the beginning, I thought you were back to being...." Kurt wiped a stray tear away as it fell down his cheek. "A white knight. And I let myself _hope_. I knew it was stupid, but I did. Then you used me to make yourself and your girlfriend more popular. You held me up in front of people. When you kissed me, I absolutely _knew_ that it was because you were kissing a thing and nothing more, and I could just write you entirely off as someone would ever I care about."

Kurt backed away and gestured sharply at the window and the world beyond. "But no. Then you had to go and prove yourself. You're kind and dependable and loyal again. Asshole," he added with a snort.

Yeah, this was just unfair. Kurt needed to make sense.

"And that was fine, because we were in a space where _all of that_ didn't matter any more. There were no feelings from either of us. It was simple, it was happy... it worked!" Kurt stormed forward again and slammed him back another step. "And now you're telling me that the _entire time_ I felt used like some trophy on the wall, like you didn't see me as a person... that you actually would have wanted _me_ the whole time?" Kurt's voice was really, really high by the time he finished. Squeaky high. He slapped his hand against Finn's chest once more, but just to impact it rather than drive him back.

"Ow, stop it," Finn mumbled as he rubbed at the sore skin. "That hurts."

"Well, you hurt me!" Kurt said. More tears were spilling over, like their conversation had dredged up all the emotions that he'd let settle after the worst period in his life. This wasn't about Finn being attracted to him, Finn finally realized. It was bigger. This was about Finn somehow finding a way to make a terrible situation even worse. He should find the right way to apologize. He should know the right words. But all he could focus on was how Kurt's eyes, bloodshot from crying, were glowing gold.

He couldn't look away.

"Why couldn't this stay simple?" Kurt whispered when he'd met Finn's eyes for a long time. "My life is hard enough, Finn."

Steeling himself for whatever he might hear, Finn asked, "Well... what would you have said if I'd told the truth back then? If I'd said what I... what I wanted?"

After staying silent for a long while, Kurt finally answered, "I would have said no."

Finn jerked a little, startled.

"I wasn't ready, Finn. I don't know when I will be." He cut off and wrapped his arms tightly around himself, like he had earlier in his room. "I got hurt. It's not something that I can just...." He laughed with no joy and shook his head. "But it would have given me some _real_ hope, and believe me, I didn't have much to hope for. You picked a path that made things worse, instead, and now you're telling me that my life could have been better."

Things fell silent between them. Eventually they heard a paw scratching at the door and Kurt automatically opened it before Hercules' claws marked the wood. "I'm going to my room," Kurt said as his hand worked over the loose skin of the dog's head. "Don't follow me."

Finn was actually starting to get a little frustrated. All of that had been more than a _year_ ago. They'd gotten so close since then. They trusted each other. He'd screwed up, okay, but they'd moved on. And now he wasn't just getting yelled at for what he felt now, but for how he'd felt during a time that had already been granted forgiveness. It sucked, it felt unfair, and he didn't know what he could possibly say in his defense that wouldn't just make things worse. He couldn't know; Kurt seemed to be dancing on the edge of illogical.

"This was so much simpler before," Kurt said thickly. "Or when Rachel was so obvious about... I mean. Nothing could happen there. It didn't matter."

The implication there made Finn stand up straighter.

"Don't," Kurt said when he noticed Finn's reaction. "Just don't." He shot Finn one last hollow, lost look and backed out of his room. His dog padded obediently after him.

Finn stayed motionless for a long time before he took a deep breath, quietly closed his door, and then ripped one of those stupid throw pillows off his bed and proceeded to kick it around the room. Fuck! He hated his brain, he hated his dick, and he sort of hated Kurt for making this so difficult when it was really simple: Finn had messed up before. He was sorry. Now he felt nice things about Kurt, not bad things, and had just wanted to tell him that.

Seriously, things should be so much easier.

Eventually he missed kicking the pillow and instead managed to stub his toe against the bedpost. Finn crumpled onto his sheets and tried not to let his eyes water. Ow. Maybe he'd broken it. That'd show Kurt.

The sound of the shower running penetrated Finn's consciousness, and he groaned and reached for another pillow. He held it over his head to block the noise and wondered if the best thing to do would be to press down hard. For a while he was locked in his own personal prison of arousal, anger, and a throbbing pain in his foot that just refused to die, and it was easy to ignore how long the sounds had lasted.

Finally Finn looked at the clock on his nightstand and frowned.

Kurt took long showers, but he'd really been in there for a while.

It was almost like he'd... zoned out in the shower, Finn thought with concern as he sat up and recalled the history that seemed to be running across Kurt's face during their argument. Seized by a sudden worry, he limped across his room to risk cracking open the bathroom door to ask, "Kurt? Hey. How much longer do you think you're gonna be?"

There was no answer but the pounding of the showerhead.

"Kurt?" Finn tried again. "Hello? Just... just want to make sure you're. Um. Awake?"

"Close the door," he finally heard. "I'm fine."

"Okay," Finn said sheepishly and pulled back. He'd probably just made things even worse.

 _Awesome._

He gave up and climbed into bed early, deciding to play video games until he passed out. Carole checked on him, brought him a snack of crackers and peanut butter when he said he just wanted something bland, and stroked his forehead and told him to feel better. Eventually Finn could feel sleep overtaking him and forced himself to head to the bathroom to scrub the taste of peanut butter out of his mouth.

Kurt was at the other sink. Finn almost turned around, but decided they had to move toward normal. He still didn't totally understand why Kurt was _so_ upset, but it had to be better to try to make the best of things. "Just brushing my teeth," Finn explained.

"I lost track of time," Kurt said quietly. "I was thinking about... things I hadn't thought about for... I lost track of time."

Finn met his eyes in the mirror but kept brushing his teeth. If he was brushing his teeth then he couldn't talk, and if he couldn't talk then he couldn't make things worse. It was all his fault that Kurt had dredged up all those old memories, and that was _so_ bad of him, but at least he wouldn't make things even worse.

"Thank you for checking on me, it snapped me out of it," Kurt said in that same soft voice. And then he was gone, vanishing silently like he'd never been there.

Finn stared after him. His toothbrush stuck out of his mouth. A glob of foam fell over his lip and landed wetly in the sink.

Okay, it was official: Kurt _was_ just trying to confuse him.

* * *

Finn's throbbing toe kept waking him up that night. At first he managed to fall back asleep, but eventually it was painful enough that he had to push himself out of bed and limp into the bathroom. He rummaged through the medicine cabinet in the dark to avoid killing his eyes in sudden light. When he found the bottle of aspirin, he tossed back a little more than the recommended dosage. (He was a big guy, after all.)

Though he tiredly turned around to head back to his room, something penetrated his sleep-fogged mind and he hesitated. It took him a little while of standing there before he put things together: Kurt had zoned out in the shower. Kurt had memories hitting him again. Kurt might be having nightmares, and up there on the third floor there wouldn't be anyone else to hear him.

Groaning, Finn limped toward the door at the far end of the bathroom and cracked it open. Small, breathy whimpers greeted him.

 _Shit._

He shuffled his way quickly across the room and knelt down next to Kurt. Hercules had his muzzle hooked over the edge of the mattress and was staring with concern at his troubled master. "Kurt," Finn said as he pushed his shoulder. "Hey. Hey, wake up."

After a few pushes Kurt tensed, lifted his head, and looked around the room. He squinted when he saw Finn's shadowed figure, then groaned and dropped his head to the pillow. "Thanks. I'm fine. Go back to bed." His hand fumbled around until he found Hercules' head and scratched his floppy ears to reassure him.

"You sure?" Finn asked, not wanting to push him. He _really_ didn't want to push him right now.

"Yes." Kurt tried to turn onto his back and fling an arm dramatically over his eyes, but he didn't move with enough momentum to roll himself up onto his wings. He sighed and covered his eyes regardless.

"O... okay," Finn said and started backing away. "Um. Night."

Finn was almost to the door by the time Kurt lifted his arm and peered at him. "Why do you sound like you're shuffling like a zombie?"

"I sort of kicked the bedpost," Finn mumbled. "Thought I'd stubbed it, but it might be broken."

"Ow," Kurt said and said up. "Well, that wasn't very smart."

Despite his pain, Finn managed to smile. This felt like the two of them _should_ feel. "Didn't really plan it."

"Well, come here," Kurt said and rummaged through his nightstand drawer. "Finn," he said more sharply when Finn didn't move. "Come. Sit." He nodded with satisfaction when Finn warily took a seat on the edge of the mattress, then methodically sliced open his thumb. He hissed with pain and extended his hand.

Finn swallowed, then looked between Kurt's eyes and the glowing blood that was the only competitor for the moonlight. It was like molten gold.

"Hurry up before it closes," Kurt said impatiently. "I don't want to cut again."

That annoyance snapped Finn out of his mood. He hesitantly took Kurt's hand and brought it to his lips. At first he licked the wound and felt an explosion of taste against his tongue, but then something drove him toward more. The tip of the thumb slid into his mouth and he rolled his tongue across the cut. He could feel it closing. As it did, Finn pulled deeper and sucked harder, determined to get every last drop of honey-like blood down his throat. The pain in his foot was already ebbing; soon it was forgotten.

He became abruptly aware that no cut remained, and that he was licking unbroken skin. Kurt was staring at him, frozen. "So your foot's better?" he finally asked in a tiny voice.

Finn had a horrible moment of wondering whether it would be worse to sit there sucking on Kurt's thumb or to answer him. There would usually be only one possible answer to that question, but he'd been _really_ bad with words that day. He finally steeled himself, pulled back, and said, "Uh, yeah. Feels fine. Thanks, you didn't have to do that."

Kurt stared awkwardly at his wet thumb and then, just as awkwardly, wiped it on his sheets.

"Sorry," Finn mumbled. "You taste good. It. _It_ tastes good. Oh God please just tell me what I'm supposed to say, okay?" But no advice came. Finn morosely readied himself to leave, but hesitated before standing. "Uh. Are you fine? The shower, and now it sounded like nightmares...?"

"I've tried not to think about what I left behind," Kurt said in a quiet, measured voice. "Hardly anyone brings it up. It was hard enough when Rachel asked me things. It's so much easier to pretend none of it happened. I can do that, here."

"But it did happen," Finn said, guessing what would come next.

"It did. And what you told me today made me really remember what it was like to be back there in the middle of everything." Kurt didn't seem ready to throw him out any more, which was good, but he definitely didn't seem happy.

"Okay. So... first I made you think the wrong thing and you were about to cry. And then I talked more and you did cry. Then you kind of hit me, and then you thanked me for snapping you out of the shower, and now I sucked... I mean. You healed me." Finn scratched roughly at his hair. "Can I just ask what you're thinking right now? Because you've thrown about twenty different reactions at me today and I keep aiming for the wrong one and making things worse."

"I don't know what I'm thinking."

Well, at least Kurt wasn't any better off than Finn. "Oh. Okay." Finn pointed at the door. "Then I guess I'm going back to bed?" Kurt nodded quietly and he sighed, stood, and walked back to his room. The bathroom door closed behind him, and Finn slid under the covers.

He could taste blood in his mouth, and the slight salt of Kurt's skin.

Groaning, but knowing it was no use fighting it, Finn reached a hand down his pajama pants. At least his foot didn't hurt any more.

* * *

Kurt was quiet over the next few days, but he didn't seem angry at Finn. That had to be a good thing, right? Finn went to school knowing that he just had to make it through a couple more months and then he was free forever, and then came home worried about the mood he might find there. But Kurt was never mad. He was just sort of depressed.

It got bad enough that Carole noticed, and Finn happened to be there to hear it. "Sweetie," she said softly, ruffling Kurt's hair. "Are you okay? You seem kind of down."

"I'm fine," he said as he chopped nuts for some dessert he was attempting.

"You don't sound fine," Carole retorted. Finn twisted around on the couch to listen and tried not to be obvious about it.

"I've been thinking about some... things that I thought I was over," Kurt finally said. "I thought I'd left them behind. Kind of took me by surprise."

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asked.

"No." He mixed the chopped nuts into the batter and kept stirring with a rigid, mechanical intensity. "It's been a long time, after all. It's not as intense as it was."

"But you sound sad," Carole said and stroked his hair again. She was very protective of Kurt, understandably.

He managed a wavering smile for her. "I just need to be sad for a while."

That made her look sad, too. She kissed him on the forehead. "Okay. I'll give you a little space, but you come right here if you need to talk to anyone, all right? We're all here for you."

"Thanks." Kurt looked at the bowl in front of him. "Carole, can you put this into the pan and bake it? I've already set the timer, and the pan's floured. I just... I might want to take a nap."

"Sure," she said. Finn saw her glance at the windows, presumably to check to see if the low, grey clouds of winter were returning. That would explain Kurt suddenly being down and depressed, but no: the sky was still sunny. "Go take a nap, and I'll tell your dad that you're just a little down when he gets home. We'll give you a couple of days."

"Thanks," he said with another quick, shallow smile, and walked up the stairs.

Finn didn't like this. It was all too close to the perpetual sorrow that Kurt had seemed to feel down in that basement. He too had thought Kurt had left everything behind. This wasn't just about whatever Finn had done, that much was obvious. He let himself become lost in his thoughts while Carole poured the batter into place, put it in to bake, and walked over to him.

"Finn?" she asked a couple of times until he finally paid her attention. "Keep an eye on Kurt, all right?"

"Uh," Finn said. There was really no way to say that he'd like to and he'd _try_ , but he might just as easily make things worse. Considering how he'd told Kurt that he was hot for him and all, Finn hadn't been making smart moves recently. "Um. Yeah. Okay."

"Thanks. Maybe it's like it was back in Ohio," she sighed. "Where he'll open up more to you than he would to us."

Finn managed to only cough a couple of times when spit went down his throat the wrong way. "Maybe." When his mother looked pointedly at him, Finn finally realized she meant _now._ "I'll... go talk to Kurt," he said as Carole smiled.

Ascending the stairs shouldn't make him that damn nervous. But they did, and so he was all in a flustered mess by the time he approached Kurt's door and knocked lightly on it. "Hey. You still awake?"

A short, annoyed sigh was his first response, then, "Yes. I said I was going to take a nap."

Finn pushed open Kurt's door and walked in. Kurt was on top of his still-flat covers, under a blanket. He'd pulled the blanket over all of him, which made for a strange, oversized lump on the bed. "Mom pretty much ordered me to come check on you."

"I should have known she wouldn't let that go so easily," Kurt said. He actually managed to smile, and the expression mirrored on Finn for just a moment before it dropped away.

With only a bit of hesitation, Finn crossed the floor and knelt next to his bed. It was higher than it had been in the basement. That had been a low, sleek bed to mirror Kurt's loft-style room; this was a high wooden frame that matched the house. It looked solid, and ready to last for a very long time. Where he'd looked down at Kurt then, this time they were nearly eye-to-eye. "I'm sorry I made you feel like this, okay? I didn't mean to."

"It's not all you, Finn," Kurt said softly. "You started it, but it's just a little part now."

"Oh." That might actually be bad; if it really was big and sprawling, then it would be harder to fix.

"I just... I've been thinking about everything I can't have. I thought about it a lot back home... I mean, old home. But then we came here and everything was supposed to be fixed, and it's not." He tugged the blanket up around his chin. "The futility of my existence has hit me in a big wave, you might say."

He had _no_ idea what that meant, so instead focused on the first part of Kurt's complaint. "You can still have a lot of stuff," Finn tried to argue. "Okay, you might have to wait for a while until you can... vote and drive a car again, but, well, you can't fit behind a wheel, anyway. So it doesn't matter that you can't drive."

Kurt stared silently at him. He blinked. Finally, he replied, "Your sensitivity astounds me."

"Will you please just tell me everything, then, so I can stop guessing?" Finn asked. Guessing what he should do next had clearly been a terrible plan.

"You're graduating soon," Kurt sighed. "Everyone's graduating. I thought I was okay with it, but it's different when it's right there in my face. There are two babies in the house. Other people get to have families while I'm not legally allowed to do _anything_ , let alone adopt, and I'm sterile besides. You drove off and tried snowboarding again this winter when you were trying to make friends. I have to check in with my dad so I know where he is, so I never accidentally go further than a mile."

All of that sucked, Finn got that. But why had it all been sparked from what Finn had said about something totally unrelated? "Well," he began slowly, trying to figure out he could possibly say, "it's not _never_. It might just be a really long time."

"You really suck at this," Kurt said as he screwed his eyes shut. "And that's not everything. I ran away from almost everyone who's been attracted to me, and I'm holed up in this mountain cabin away from meeting anyone else but family. So I'd written off ever getting to have _someone._ I accepted it. I would never have someone. Then I hear someone wants me... and it's you. You."

The way Kurt said 'you' made Finn feel more dismissed than he ever had in his life. It was hard not to slink out of the room like an abused animal. "Wow, sorry," he mumbled.

Kurt continued, "You, the person who didn't want me when I was me. You, the person who _completely_ broke my heart when I was first dealing with this. And now, you, the person who is part of my family. I know we're on the top floor, but I'm not ready to go all Flowers in the Attic."

Again, Finn had no idea what that meant. "We don’t have to do anything. All I was trying to do was stop you from thinking I thought you were gross. That was _it._ It wasn't a... a commitment or anything. It was an explanation. I swear. What's Flowers in the Attic?"

"You don't want to know," Kurt groaned. "Look, I told Carole: I just need to be sad for a while."

Finn frowned and automatically made a move to rest his hand comfortingly on Kurt, like he would have done for anyone. "When you got sad, you got _really_ sad," he said. "I don't think you want to do that again." But Kurt didn't reply: he just lay there with a soft, gentle smile on his face. That was weird, Finn thought, before he realized what he'd inadvertently done: rested his hand on top of the blanket... on top of the wings.

Kurt's eyes slowly re-opened when Finn jerked his hand away. "Oh my God," Finn gasped. "Sorry. I didn't mean to... it was on accident." He remembered just resting his hands on them before, remaining absolutely still, and Kurt hadn't really responded in any way beyond what appeared to be simple happiness. Movement had gone sexual _very_ quickly, though, and he knew even threatening that without asking had crossed a huge line. Fuck! He just kept making things worse.

"That felt so good," Kurt said in a tiny voice. "I'd almost forgotten. It's been so long. I just... I felt happy." He met Finn's eyes in what seemed to be an almost pleading look and Finn absolutely froze. There was no way he could _offer_ to touch him again, not after that huge talk about how inappropriate he was apparently being. But Kurt really, really seemed to want a moment of feeling happy and unconcerned, no matter how it came.

Like he could sense Finn's internal struggle, Kurt whispered, "So long as you keep your hand perfectly still, it's just in my heart."

Was that a yes? Finn bit his lip. Oh God, couldn't Kurt be a _little_ less confusing? This week had been totally awful. He didn't want to assume anything. Every assumption just made things worse.

"I know we shouldn't, but I'd forgotten what it felt like," Kurt said. "Please, Finn. Just keep still. I trust you."

Oh, dammit. Finn just bit back a groan and then, moving with agonizing slowness, pulled the blanket just a few inches down and rested his hand on the feathers that were revealed. They were soft and sleek, and he could feel the flesh underneath throb very faintly with Kurt's heartbeat. It was like the pulse in his wrist. Finn focused on counting that pulse to distract himself from what he was doing. It seemed fast, but then, it might be normal for whatever had happened to Kurt's body.

Eventually he stopped counting and looked at Kurt's face. The boy was dead asleep. The hint of a smile curled his lips.

Finn slowly pulled back his hand and watched Kurt sleep for a minute longer. He made soft noises that sounded nothing like the nightmares that Finn had interrupted, and the tip of his tongue stole out and in again. Even if Finn had set off this chain of dominoes that had fallen in Kurt's heart, he'd also just left him happy when nothing else seemed to do the job.

Was it too much to hope that _anything_ could just turn out simple?


	3. Chapter 3

They didn't say anything the next morning when they ran into each other in the bathroom. Finn kept looking nervously at Kurt as they brushed their teeth. He expected another big discussion about what they'd done, what Finn had made him feel, and how it was complicated and wrong. Instead Kurt just finished brushing, spat into the sink, and flashed a quick smile before walking out. He still seemed subdued, but it was definitely an improvement over the previous day.

Maybe the wings really had helped.

Finn frowned around his toothbrush as he kept moving it inside his mouth, until he realized he was cleaning with little more than spit. He shoved the brush back into his holder and ran his hands through his hair. It was a weekend, fortunately, and he didn't have to deal with school. Of course, it did mean that he would be around the house, facing Kurt, and wondering what to do next.

The growling from his stomach told him what had to come immediately next: breakfast. He quickly pulled on an outfit and jogged downstairs. "Hey," he said with surprise when he rounded the corner and was taken by surprise by the sight there. "Uh, didn't expect this."

"I can't handle the smell of meat," Kurt said as he stirred the pan full of scrambled eggs, "but this isn't too bad." Finn knew he could tolerate them, but he only ever actually _ate_ them when they were in a baked recipe. Why would he make some for breakfast? "Oh, Dad and Carole are doing some work outside, preparing for spring. They asked us to watch the girls."

"Sure," Finn said as he warily climbed up on a barstool. "Um. So. About last night...."

Kurt gave him another quick smile before he added some grated cheese to the eggs, let it melt, and then put everything on a plate. Soon Finn's breakfast was in front of him. He hesitated, but when Kurt encouraged him he dug in. "Thanks," Finn said after the first bite. It was good.

Toast popped up and Kurt retrieved it for himself. He drizzled honey on it and leaned against the counter opposite Finn, rather than joining him in a seat. "So, about last night," he continued before he took his first bite.

Finn swallowed what he was chewing. "I just want to make sure that you were okay with everything, I guess."

"I asked you to do it, Finn," Kurt pointed out.

"I know, but the first time I did it by accident." Finn poked at his eggs. "And I just... I'd said things I shouldn't have said. And then I did something I shouldn't have done. I know you asked for it the second time, but I've just been screwing up over and over. I wanted to make sure I hadn't made things worse."

"No," Kurt said. "You made them better."

Oh God he was just _made_ of confusion and impossible reactions to predict, wasn't he? "How?" Finn asked warily. "How did I make things better?" Because him touching Kurt was tied into a time that had made Kurt mad, and so clearly him touching Kurt should be _bad_ once Kurt was back to his senses in the light of morning.

"There's so much that I can't have," Kurt said with the same quiet sadness Finn had seen the night before. "Some of it might take a very, very long time before the world thinks I'm worth it. Some I might never get. And there's no changing that. Are you done with the plate?"

Finn blinked in confusion, then gestured to the empty plate in front of him. He'd practically bolted his food down; he'd been hungry. "Oh, yeah."

Kurt moved it to the sink. "I don't want you," he said just as the clattering of ceramic against metal faded.

Finn flinched. Ouch.

"I don't want to treat you like a default. Like my only option. Because... you are." Kurt began to quietly wash the dishes. "We keep everyone else in the world off our land. You and Carole are the only people who will _be_ on this land that I'm not related to, or won't be related to. And she's obviously not an option for about ten thousand different reasons."

Wow. Finn knew in his head that Kurt was isolated, but it hadn't really sunk in to his heart. He was still the strange new guy at school, but—if he said so himself—he had to be one of the best-looking guys in the hallways. The girls there didn't necessarily want to spend time with the unfamiliar senior who vanished into a strange new house at the end of every day, but he definitely got attention. If he made an effort to commit to that school, even though he knew it was temporary, he could have options.

Kurt didn't. Kurt wouldn't. Unless the world changed, he _never would._ Like Finn's mind refused to accept something so awful, he sought desperately for a counter-argument. One presented itself and Finn argued proudly, "No, you're wrong! There are two other options!"

"Do tell," Kurt said, with a voice that said he was willing to be convinced but already knew that Finn was wrong.

After a quick glance at the windows to orient himself, Finn pointed in a direction that he knew was down the hillside, along a dirt road, and toward a house more luxurious and spacious than their own. Kurt eyed him for a beat and then burst out laughing. It was a good sound to hear, but Finn was _serious._ "Don't laugh! He's obviously a solid guy, and you like girls if they're Angels!"

"Finn," Kurt said, leaning forward to catch Finn's hand in his. "An international superstar three times my age, who has to be constantly filming all around the world, is not an option. Nor is the girl who has to be within a mile of him when he's doing all that constant filming."

Still, though. They were around _sometimes._ And even if it felt beyond strange to encourage Kurt that maybe he could hook up with George Clooney or a girl with feathers, at least it reminded him that he wasn't totally alone. Right?

Like Kurt had heard Finn's internal argument, he continued quietly, "Very little has gone right for me. Someone who is only here on occasion would not be serious. It wouldn't be in here," he added, tapping above his heart. "And if it just comes down to sex, well, I know I could have anyone. They'd want me so badly that they'd offer to pay. Which is exactly what I _don't_ want. Not after...." His hand pulled back, his eyes closed, and Kurt shook his head. "More than anything, I don't want to just do _that_ to do it. Until the world changes, there is exactly one option for me. And I don't want you to just be my default, not when I can't leave and things could go very wrong. I don't want to fall into things because I'm impatient."

It took Finn a moment to pick up on, but he realized what Kurt was really saying: it wasn't that he didn't want Finn, it was that he wasn't _letting_ himself want Finn. Maybe, below that restriction, he genuinely had lost all the attraction he'd once felt. He couldn't know for sure. But the stated problem was the life Kurt had been thrown into, not the two of them. "What you're talking about could be a long time," Finn pointed out, though he felt bad for doing so. It could be ten years in a chastity belt. Twenty years. Or more than that, even; the world might be _really_ slow to change.

"I know," Kurt said as he began drying pans and dishes. "I know that very well. But in the overall scheme of things... 'a long time' might not be that much of my life." He managed a wan smile. "And despite a reset button, I only get the one. So I'd rather not deliberately risk screwing things up."

"I guess that's it, then," Finn awkwardly said as he watched Kurt place all of the dried pans and dishes on a rack, one by one. "Well, okay. That's how we were before. So that's fine. No big."

"How we were before," Kurt repeated. He hesitated before asking, "About last night... did you mind? Just touching, not moving?"

"No," Finn said. Was Kurt actually going to ask for that again?

"I know I don't get much," Kurt began after another moment's pause. "And I know that going... all the way with that isn't something that we can do, or want to do. But the way it makes me feel, with someone I trust, is something good in my life. Something totally pure and good, and how often do I get that?" His teary eyes gave the lie to the broader smile he attempted. "It'd been so long that I'd let myself forget."

"Sure, of course," Finn said thickly. It was difficult to forget the reaction Kurt had given him when he'd moved his hand across him, and that was what he was picturing. But he _could_ just hold his hand in place. He could give Kurt the pleasant buzz that he could never get from alcohol, and one bright spot in a life that didn't have much. "You bet."

"Can we...?" Kurt began. "We should go check on the girls first. But after that?"

Finn nodded mutely and followed Kurt up a flight of stairs. The girls had been fed earlier but didn't yet need to be changed, and so after a bit of attention they let them return to dozing in their cribs and walked to the third floor. Kurt pointed to his room and arranged himself face-down on his bed when Finn followed. With a quick movement against his shoulders he unfastened the flap of shirting material between the wings. Then he slumped, releasing more tension than Finn had expected to see fall away. "Okay," Kurt said against his pillow. "Don't go too far."

"I won't," Finn said in a voice full of wonder as his hand moved delicately toward the wings. It came to rest on one of the thick, powerful bases. He adjusted it instinctively when the full weight of his arm went slack and heard Kurt suck in a breath under him. "Not moving any more," Finn quickly promised him. "Just getting a good position."

"Okay," Kurt said after a few steady breaths. It sounded hard to form the word, and he soon closed his eyes and stopped trying to fight whatever pleasure Finn was sending through him.

What did this feel like? He knew Kurt had described it, but there was no way that could truly make up for _feeling_ it. Despite himself, Finn got the sudden image of a cat blissfully lifting its chin when someone scratched the soft fur there. He knew Kurt hated animal comparisons; anything that led toward "it" was dangerous territory. Still, it was hard to make people go so totally overboard with feeling good. Massages only worked if you knew what you were doing. (On Rachel's suggestion, he'd tried on her back. She'd yelped and told him to never do that again.) And with Kurt, at least for this, Finn felt like he knew what he was doing.

As Kurt zoned out, Finn had to fight the urge to do the same. Just like his fingers would naturally start threading through a cat's fur, his thumb wanted to trace circles along the soft, warm pillar under his hand. He didn't know how far that would push Kurt, but he hadn't been given permission. Until he was, that was off limits.

Finn frowned at himself. Until he was? No, he couldn't go down that route. This was the level Kurt was comfortable at. He shouldn't expect anything more. That might lead him to push Kurt, and that would be so, _so_ bad.

So instead, while Kurt lay there in a blissful trance, Finn looked at him. He looked at the way one wing was still folded tightly in place, while the one he touched slumped out and down like an arm casually thrown over the side of the bed. He looked at the tiny, thread-fine feathers that first sprouted as skin approached the wings. Soft white petals layered the actual structure where it erupted. By the time the very end of the sprawled-open wing touched the floor, the feathers had become sturdier, glossier, and much, _much_ bigger.

He knew Kurt had gone through so much because of those things. He wondered, because of that, if he could really appreciate how beautiful they were.

Eventually he heard a baby crying and reluctantly pulled his hand away. "I have to go check on them," he said as Kurt came back to his senses. Finn glanced at a clock; they'd been like that for almost half an hour. Wow. It had felt like nothing.

"Sure," Kurt said as he pulled the extended wing back into place, rolled over, and sat up. "Thanks. That was really nice."

"Yeah," Finn said, swallowing. He knew he should go attend to his crying sister, but he didn't want to leave. It was _crazy_ how intense Kurt's eyes were. Did he understand how beautiful they were, too? Maybe. He saw those up-close in the mirror every day, after all. Their changes would be harder to ignore. "Uh. Any time."

Kurt looked at the floor for a moment, then met Finn's eyes again. "Like I said, I don't have much any more. So I... so I'd like that."

"Well, uh." Finn swallowed. "Okay." He pointed at the door. "Grace. Or Ann. Or both. I should... you don't have to...."

"Right," Kurt said. "Thanks."

"Welcome," Finn said, flashed a quick, kneejerk smile, and then darted downstairs.

They were gonna do it again. This wouldn't make his stupid, inconvenient feelings any easier to deal with, but he really couldn't find it in him to care.

* * *

"Hey, Mom?" Finn asked the next morning. He'd spent a chunk of his Saturday evening with his hand on Kurt again. Back in Lima, he would have been hitting the movies for a date, playing in a game, or simply cruising around town with his friends. Instead, he sat quietly and felt a feather-muffled heartbeat under his hand, while the wind whistled against trees and windows.

It was so much better than Lima.

Carole looked up from her book. "What is it?"

It had been one thing to sit like that with Kurt when their parents were outside, but Finn realized that it felt very different when they were just downstairs. There would be no slamming of the heavy outer door, no call to alert them that they were taking over the girls. And while they weren't doing anything _wrong_ , it would still be hard to explain. So, when Finn retreated to his room, he stared at the ceiling for a long time and thought about things.

Finn Hudson didn't often get flashes of genius, so he was pretty proud of this one. "In a couple of months I'll have graduated high school, right?"

"That's the plan," Carole said with good humor.

"So I'll have graduated, and Kurt and I will both be eighteen... we're going to really work around here like it's our job...."

"That's the plan," Carole repeated, clearly wondering where he was going with this.

"Well, I think we should feel like grown-ups," Finn said. "And when you grow up, you get your own place." He saw her dubious expression and quickly added, "I know we can't. I know we built our rooms to be used for a long time. But they're way off where no one usually comes, and so it's sort of like an apartment way up there." One without a kitchen, mind. Maybe he could get a dorm fridge for his room.

"That's a good way to look at it, I suppose," Carole said. "We're going to be very busy with little kids; you boys should have a quiet space of your own."

"Right!" he said with excitement. "So I was thinking that you could really think of it like our apartment, that's all ours. That you don't have a key for." Her eyebrow raised, and Finn clarified, "Just let it be our space. Adult space. Man space."

"Man space," Carole repeated with amusement.

"This wasn't what I expected to be doing with my life, Mom," Finn pointed out. "I'm glad I came here. I'm _so_ glad I didn't stay with you in Lima until I graduated. But I don't want to spend the next... however many years never knowing when my mom is going to walk in without knocking."

Something in that argument seemed to get through to her. "You're right," she admitted. "You made a big commitment coming here. You didn't have to, but you really stepped up, Finn. I'm proud of you for that, and you're right that you should be able to have more of an adult life." Her certainty dropped. "You're not going to let dishes pile up, are you? Hang clothes over your furniture?"

Finn snorted, smiling. "Mom, Kurt's up there. You really think he'd let me get away with that?"

"Good point," Carole admitted wryly. "Well... okay. I'll talk to Burt, but I'm sure he'll be fine, too. Because you're right, it's only fair. Now, we _can_ still come up there, but we'll make sure you two are fine with it before we do."

Finn grinned. Awesome. It'd worked out just like he wanted. Now they didn't have to worry about being surprised in the middle of a touching session.

"Just... I hate to say this, Finn, because I know he doesn't want us worrying over him. But you know how Kurt's been down this week," she said quietly. "If he has somewhere he can retreat to, then he could really get pulled inside his own mind when he has another bad stretch. You'll need to be ready to be really careful with him, okay?"

He was so ready for that. "I will, Mom," Finn promised.

"Look out for him?"

"I'm trying, don't worry."

"Okay, then." She squeezed his hand. "I'm very proud of you for everything you're doing, Finn. I just want you to know that. If having your own space makes you feel more like the man who acts that way, then I think you should have it. Unless I call first," she finished with a wink, "the third floor is off-limits."

"Cool, thanks," Finn said. "I'm gonna go up there, then. Bye!"

She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, and waved rather than argue. "Enjoy your 'new place,' boys."

Oh, they would. Finn nearly took the stairs at a run and soon rapped his knuckles against Kurt's door. "Hey," he said when he was allowed in. "Great news."

* * *

That week they made a habit of Finn resting his hands on the wings for at least a half-hour each evening. On Thursday, when he was distracted by thoughts of a major assignment that had been given in history, something changed.

Kurt had been doing better. As he'd said, he just needed to be sad for a while before he could come out the other side of it. The touching clearly helped that process and they'd made it a regular thing. Finn was pretty confident that Kurt was on the mend, and so he'd let himself think on his own troubles with the huge essay he'd just been assigned.

"Finn," Kurt said breathily.

"Huh?" Finn asked, not really looking at him. World War II was kind of cool, and so could be an interesting paper topic, but he had the feeling that his teacher was really into knowing the dates of big battles.

"Finn," Kurt repeated, drawing out that single syllable.

Finn finally looked at him and jerked his hand away after a moment of processing the sight before him. His thumb had finally started moving in unconscious circles. Kurt was breathing hard, and had probably just been on the edge of coherence when he'd called Finn's name. "Oh God," Finn whispered. "I'm sorry." He hadn't asked. Shit! He hadn't asked!

Heavy breathing was his only answer. Kurt clutched his pillow, squeezing hard and then releasing, and slowly seemed to get himself under control. "Wow," he finally mumbled.

"Wait," Finn said with confusion. "Was that okay?"

"It felt really good," Kurt said and adjusted his position on the bed. Finn swallowed when he fully realized what was going on. He'd pushed things so much further than he'd meant to. "I'd forgotten just how...." But he trailed off and shook his head. "We can't."

"I'm really sorry. I just lost my train of thought."

"We'll talk next time," Kurt suggested. "I can help you work through plans for school, all right?" He shot Finn a smile that would look wholly innocent if not for how dark his eyes were. There was clearly a reason he still had his hips pressed against the bed. "That'll keep your focus on me, and keep your mind from wandering."

"Next time," Finn repeated with relief.

"Next time," Kurt repeated. He laid his head back against the pillow and kept slowly relaxing. "Wow," he said, not seeming like he meant to be heard. "I'd forgotten." After laying there slackly for a few more deep breaths, he said, "Go do your homework. We have to make sure you graduate right on time."

"Yeah, sure," Finn said and let him be.

His assignments took him three times as long as usual.

* * *

"So," Finn said the next night as he kept his hand very still on Kurt. "Do you think we should do band stuff again, or should we get some new games? The guys'll pick up whatever we want, so we can do multiplayer."

"I'm fine with more band stuff," Kurt said. The wing under Finn's hand flicked up from where it was laying against the floor; Finn froze. When it came to rest _on his legs_ , it took him a few seconds to start breathing again.

The feathers covered him where he was sitting on the edge of the bed. It was like looking down and seeing his legs vanish underneath a tablecloth. How many people in the world ever saw something like this? And how many people would ever have it be so comfortable? The movement had happened with all the ease of a friend slouching against another's shoulder on the couch.

"Finn?" Kurt asked, twisting around a little. He saw Finn staring down at the wing, but Finn could only see Kurt's face in his peripheral vision. He couldn't turn wholly away from the sight on top of him. "Finn?" Kurt repeated more gently.

Finn swallowed. "Yeah?"

Kurt studied him a little more before once again laying his head against his folded arms. And then, to Finn's mingled amazement and horror, the wing began to move. It slid slowly down to his knees, then back up along his legs until it was tracing his torso up to his chest. The feathers were very long that far down the wing, and it seemed like he could feel every last inch of them as they moved across his clothing.

Under the wing and under his jeans, Finn was so hard that he could barely think.

The few thoughts that he could form fell like leaves in a windstorm. This was Kurt. Kurt, who he hadn't liked _like that_. Who all of a sudden had something happen to him that never happened to anyone. Who looked exactly the same except better, and it was like someone had flipped a switch in Finn's brain. He wanted Kurt so badly that he was leaking against his jeans and _he didn't even really know what guys did together._ He had vague ideas, enough to understand when someone had used a term to insult him, but he couldn't even say what it was that he wanted to be doing. He just needed to do it right then, right there, with the heartbreakingly beautiful person in front of him.

"You seemed to like it on you," Kurt finally said. "I just wanted to pay you back a little."

"Uh huh," Finn said. He wondered how dark his eyes looked.

The wing moved up with agonizing slowness. It spread as it lifted. Each individual feather glistened in the overhead light. And then, threatening to overwhelm Finn so much that he very nearly jerked away, some of those long feathers trailed delicately across his face.

"Oh God, stop," Finn cried out and slammed a hand against his crotch. For a second the pressure threatened to send him over the edge. The pain that followed a second later pulled him back.

"Sorry," Kurt said and instantly refolded. He turned around to see what was going on, and his eyes opened wide. "Oh," he said softly. It was completely obvious that Finn was sporting a raging hard-on. At least his hand covered the damp spot.

"Sorry," Finn said. His cheeks burned. Fuck. They'd been doing so good and now he'd ruined everything. "I didn't mean... sorry." He finally risked looking at Kurt with more than shamed, stolen glances. Once he did, he froze. All he could think at that moment was: that time, he hadn't been moving his hand against the wing.

Kurt stared at where Finn's hand pressed against his cock that refused to cooperate. And with those tighter jeans, Kurt's erection snaked against his leg instead of tenting loose denim. He swallowed. His hand clutched the covers, and he licked his lips once.

It was true. It was only the situation that was the problem. Kurt wanted him.

"You should go back to your room, Finn," Kurt finally said. But he kept staring at Finn as he said it.

Finn hesitated just long enough to let him change his mind. He wouldn't argue. He wouldn't push. He'd just take a few deep breaths, first.

"You should... you should... oh God," Kurt whispered. Finn stayed absolutely still, now. He wasn't suggesting, he wasn't prodding Kurt toward anything. This was all about what Kurt _wanted_ in his life. If he'd returned to thinking that being touched was a good idea, then what was to say that, _all on his own_ , he might not go even further? Right?

Pressing firmly against himself, Kurt groaned, shook his head, and then said in a rush, "Oh God, you need to touch them again, move your hand, please."

Finn hesitated again, but only to make sure Kurt wouldn't change his mind in the next second. When no counter came, he reached forward and distantly realized that Kurt was facing him. That meant the wings were facing away from him. That wouldn't work. He was glad that Kurt was so light as he moved on half-blind instinct. It was easy to fumble across the bed and pull back with Kurt in his arms, who then sat on Finn's thighs. Finn wrapped his arms around Kurt's torso. For the first time, he stroked along both wings at once.

Keening with pleasure, Kurt pressed himself against Finn. It took Finn a few strokes to realize that Kurt was actually fumbling against his waist; the need must be great enough to overcome his bliss. A second later Finn nearly felt his brain overload as he felt Kurt's freed erection press hotly against his stomach, but he kept stroking. He didn't know if he'd ever seen anything more beautiful than when Kurt let his head loll to the side in bliss like that, or felt anything more delicious than Kurt rocking his hips back and forth against Finn's still-trapped cock.

All too quickly, Kurt tensed like Finn remembered from earlier days with the wings. This time, when he came, it wasn't hidden inside his jeans. He marked Finn's shirt like he was making a claim. It was so blatant and sudden that Finn felt himself crest a second later, and he made the mess inside his clothing that Kurt had avoided.

They panted a few times, not meeting the other's eyes, but slowly brought brown up to stare into unnatural turquoise. "We weren't supposed to," Kurt said, but he softened the protest with a half-smile. "It could mess everything up."

"We don't have to do that again if you don't want to," Finn said. For once, his brain overpowered his dick. That was a very mature thing to say. His hormones felt like they wanted to throttle him for it, too.

"We shouldn't," Kurt said. His breathing was steadying. "We... we really shouldn't. I'm sorry."

Their sudden passion turned quickly toward awkwardness. Finn wondered if he should lift Kurt up and off him. "Hey, you didn't do anything wrong," he said, swallowing. "It was just a thing that happened." His gaze flicked down and he realized Kurt was still out, softening against him. Kurt's eyes followed him down and he made an embarrassed gasp and stood to fix himself.

Once that was taken care of, Kurt said without quite turning to face him, "Well, I guess you really want me."

"Yeah. Um. Sorry. It's weird." Finn managed to smile. "At least you don't have to change your underwear this time."

Kurt actually laughed. "I suppose not. You should, though. Go change."

Well, that was definitely a dismissal. At least it was done in a good mood? "Yeah, okay," Finn said. "Um, before I go... you're okay, right?"

After taking a few beats to really consider that, Kurt nodded. "I am. I guess that's a good sign. Thanks." The absurdity of his last word seemed to hit him, and he giggled nervously.

Finn forced back a sound just as nervous. "Sure thing." He pointed at the door. "Changing. Me. Now. Um, night."

"Night," Kurt said. His eyes sparkled in a way Finn hadn't seen before, but maybe he was just imagining it.

Finn closed the door behind him when he entered the bathroom and made a face at the sight in the mirror. He was rumpled, sweaty, and had a big streak of come across his shirt. That was a sight he'd only seen before when he'd been sloppy jerking himself off through the slit in his boxers. But after a moment, his expression softened. When he'd marked himself, it was kind of gross. This was kind of amazing.

Flashing back to how Kurt's blood had tasted so sweet, Finn frowned thoughtfully at his shirt. He eyed the door, like Kurt would suddenly burst in even though he expected Finn to be washing off his boxers, and then slowly brought up just a tiny bit to his tongue.

Oh, _fuck._ It was just _stupid_ that it tasted that good. Blood and come should not taste like dessert, it just wasn't fair!

The sudden image of going down on Kurt, trying to get him to release right into Finn's mouth, would haunt him all that night. Of that Finn was suddenly and totally certain. He sighed, stripped off most of his clothes without bothering to wash them off, and threw them against the wall when he stormed into his room.

Before that night, his entire sexual history had consisted of accidentally coming when he was making out with Quinn, nearly repeating himself from kissing Rachel, and having the least satisfying sex ever with Santana. Now he'd had one of the most perfect, most desired people on the entire _planet_ practically riding him, and it that person was someone he totally liked and got along with, to boot.

And then, when they'd finished, that person said they shouldn't have done that.

Maybe Kurt would change his mind, Finn thought as he pulled on a fresh pair of boxers and crawled under the covers wearing nothing more than those and his socks. He wouldn't push him, but maybe he'd change his mind.

He could only hope, Finn thought as he pulled the covers up to his chin. He'd be responsible and respectful, but he could only hope that Kurt would want more. He'd never even taken his pants off and it was still the hottest thing he'd ever felt in his life.


	4. Chapter 4

The first time Finn had ended a night in sex, it left him feeling broken and alone. But he'd gone back to Santana. He wanted to be popular and she wanted to be popular. They worked together like they were starting a business: School Royalty R Us. There'd been no emotional connection, just like their first time, but it felt good. She'd said she would keep him happy if it meant she'd keep her place on top, and in return she showed him a few things. Finn learned how to use his hand to bring Santana off, and then how to go down on her like it was a college class with a grade on the line.

He would have liked it if she did develop some feelings for him, though. The sex was great, but it was so mechanical. Just like when they'd tried phone sex after he moved out there, Finn had the feeling that he could have been anyone. She cared that Finn Hudson was popular, not that Finn Hudson was Finn Hudson. Of course, he'd turned down everyone else because they weren't as popular as Santana Lopez. He really didn't have room to talk.

Sex—real, full-on "his dick was in another person" sex—felt great. But he'd always gotten the feeling that Santana was just waiting for him to finish. There was no connection there. To hear some people talk about it, that was the best part. He'd never felt it, though.

Last night he'd come inside his own boxers and it felt more meaningful than anything he'd ever done. He finally had some idea of what sex could be beyond losing control in a hot tub or watching Santana look almost bored under him.

And then Kurt said that they shouldn't do it again.

That was fair. Finn was the one who could drive to the next town. He had tons of options. Maybe they weren't as convenient as being the next door over, but he had them. Kurt was right: unlike Finn, he had exactly one option in the entire world. If he said no it had to be for a good reason. So Kurt got to set the pace, even if that pace ran into a big red stop sign.

Maybe Finn should talk to those girls at school more, he thought as he threw an arm across his eyes. Except that he would never be able to tell them the full story of why they'd moved into town. He'd never be able to bring them home. Letting a stranger near Kurt was out of the question, not until this security firm that the ACLU recommended had screened them. He doubted some high school girl would agree to a complete personal history analysis.

The kids at school must think he was so weird. Well, he'd show them, Finn thought snidely. They'd be wrinkly and need Viagra while he'd still be... be sporting morning wood over the Angel just down the hallway from him.

Finn groaned, grabbed his pillow, and held it over his face for a second. His pep talk had wandered off-course. Forcing himself to stand made him realize that his bladder was full. Because of that, he grabbed the first available clothes and made a beeline for the toilet when gravity began to pull painfully at him.

Once that was taken care of, Finn realized what shirt he was wearing: the same one he'd thrown off the night before. There was no white streak dried across the front, like he might have expected. It took him a second to remember that the come marking it hadn't been his own. He poked at his chest a little more until he made the connection with Kurt's disappearing blood.

"Hey!" Finn said as he opened the door to Kurt's room. He wanted to share his discovery, and had burst in without thought to the consequences.

The sunrise streaked Kurt's hair with light where it slanted past the blinds. His skin was cream and gold, like clouds and sunlight. He slowly opened his eyes and blue joined that living sky. "What?" he asked tiredly.

A moment later both of them seemed to remember what they'd done together the night before. Finn blushed hotly, wondering why he'd stormed in, and Kurt tugged the covers shyly to his neck. "What is it?" Kurt asked again in a higher, less certain voice.

Finn stood there silent, feeling stupider by the moment. He had to say something. He had to say _something._ "It's just... this was the shirt I wore last night." He gestured at the unmarred navy blue. "And you were sort of all over it."

Kurt frowned in thought, and then in distaste. "Finn, why didn't you put that in the laundry bag? And wash it out in the sink?"

"I just thought it was cool. See? It's like the blood, it just takes longer to disappear. You don't have to wash your underwear any more!" Finn said, smiling. "I mean... not that we're doing anything again. You'd only need that if we were doing stuff. And we're not. And you'd want to wash your underwear normally, just as part of the laundry. I was just thinking back to when we... sorry. I don't even know what I'm saying any more."

"Don't you have school?" Kurt asked. At first the words sounded dismissive, but then Finn realized that not all of the soft glow on his cheeks came from the slanting sunlight. He was blushing as fiercely as he'd ever seen him. "You should get dressed."

Though he had no idea what drove him to say it, Finn ran a hand down the shirt that Kurt had marked. "Gonna wear this again," he said easily.

Emotions warred on Kurt's face: first disbelief, then disgust. Curiosity took over next, and then... then a small, private smile that he tried to hide under the covers. "Um. I'll see you after school."

"Yep," Finn said. He wasn't pushing him toward _anything._ But if he just happened to do something to put that smile on Kurt's face, well, then he'd just see what came out of it.

* * *

Moving to a small town in the Rocky Mountains had taught Finn about horses, Mormons, and skiing: mostly, that he didn't know anything about any of them. Hearing about his classmates' adventures on the ski hill pushed him there during his first winter and gave him three broken legs as a result. (At least Kurt had been able to heal him before anyone found out.) It seemed like all of the cutest girls in his class went to the same church, and it was one that definitely didn't cater toward the strange newcomer who refused to share too much information about his home life.

One time he'd accepted an invitation to a classmate's home, though. They had thirty acres on the valley floor and a cluster of trail horses. To his amazement, Finn tried riding one and didn't get thrown off. Then the next day arrived and his thighs hurt so badly that he actually whimpered when he got out of bed.

Football wasn't a cure-all, either. He was the best player on the tiny team but it didn't open the conversations he hoped for. No one cared about the Buckeyes. He heard more about biases toward East Coast reporting than he did the actual games. Rivalries were between Utah and Brigham Young, not Ohio State and Michigan. NFL season was a war between people in Broncos gear and Seahawks. Finn forgot to wear his Bengals sweatshirt that first day, and then he forgot it permanently at the back of his closet.

It wasn't like the people there weren't nice. They were super nice. A lot nicer than the people in Lima, if he was being honest. In their tiny town that had little in the way of amenities or pre-packaged entertainment, there was a real sense that they were all in things together. But the other people knew all the tricks of living there. They knew the secret handshakes. Maybe one day Finn would learn them all, but until then he felt like a guest in someone else's home.

He was kind of lonely, too.

His hand kept unconsciously touching his shirt all day. It was only when he was driving home that he realized what he was doing, and he smiled all the way up the long dirt road into the forest. Nodding a quick greeting on the first floor, he then ran up the stairs into their third floor "apartment" and knocked on Kurt's door. "Hey," Finn said when he was greeted. "I'm back."

"I see that," Kurt said. "And you really did wear that shirt."

"Yep."

"Please say you wore different boxers, though."

Finn laughed. "Yeah, of course. Gross. So, um... what did you do today?"

"Read about plants that might work around here. And how to keep bees. I really want bees." Kurt hesitated, and then let the attempt at casual conversation fall away. "Look, I'm really sorry about last night."

"Why?" Finn asked dumbly. He was the one who should be sorry, right? He'd let his stupid thumb start moving.

"I don't know what I was thinking, doing that with my wing. And then I asked you to... after I'd told you that...." Kurt laughed nervously. "I crossed a line and I'm very sorry."

"You didn't... I mean... if you crossed a line, I sort of liked that you crossed it." Finn swallowed. "I liked it a lot. And I thought I'd crossed a line."

"Maybe," Kurt said. He rubbed his wrist nervously with the other hand. "I sort of liked that, too. But we can't."

"Okay," Finn immediately agreed. It took him a few seconds until he realized how kneejerk his response was. He wouldn't push Kurt. He never would. But just wanting to understand what was going on wasn't really pushing him. "Why?"

"Because... I don't know, all those reasons I said! I don't want you to be my default. And I don't want to mess things up. If we're trapped near each other, emphasis on the 'trapped' for me...."

Finn frowned. "Why are you obsessing over the worst things that could happen?"

"Because I have to," Kurt said quietly.

"And I get that, okay but... don't you ever want to focus on how good things could be, instead of how bad? You talked about how you were short on hope, right?" Finn let out a short puff of air. "Whatever. If you say no then I'm cool with it, but last night was great. I know we have more history together than, like, five textbooks at this point. I know you don't like what changed things so that I'm into you. But I think we both liked what happened."

Kurt didn't say anything.

"If you'd rather think about bees, then okay, fine," Finn said a little more tightly than he meant to. "It's not like we haven't fought before and gotten over it, so I don't know why you'd think this'd automatically ruin things forever. But hey, like you told me, you don't want me." It'd stung when Kurt told him that, and even though he knew it was a lie, it stung again when he pulled it out again. The line made Kurt flinch, too.

Oh, good. They were already fighting again. Well, time to put that theory to the test about how they'd be fine afterwards, right?

"Guess I'll work on my homework," he finally said when Kurt remained silent. He was like a statue. A perfect, sculptured, annoying statue who tasted like fucking light and life and happiness.

Soon Finn sat miserably on his bed and wondered how he'd managed to screw up in the exact same way as before. He'd stormed through the bathroom, stomped around his bedroom, and then wound up and kicked his bedpost.

Breaking his leg three times was pretty embarrassing, but at least skiing was hard. He'd managed to break his toe twice in his own room.

A little while later the door opened. Finn looked up instinctively to see who it was before he remembered that up there on the third floor, it could only be one person. Kurt looked wary and conflicted, but that melted away when he saw the state Finn was in. "What happened?"

"I hurt my foot again," Finn mumbled.

Kurt stared at him behind unreadable eyes, and then vanished from the doorframe. He soon returned with his knife and sat next to Finn on the edge of the mattress. "Here," he said gently as the knife bit into his hand. It wasn't the pad of his thumb, like he'd always used, but was the thick, meaty base under his palm. Barely flinching, he held up the glowing wound to Finn and gestured him toward it.

Finn put his mouth there and instantly felt the differences of the new location. The end of the thumb was like sucking at candy, and even if he had turned it into something... else, it was still where other people drank. This was different. The thick, rounded curve split his lips apart like a kiss.

When he felt the skin close, Finn did kiss it before he pulled away. "Thanks," he said softly. "I need to stop doing that."

"Yes you do," Kurt said. He clicked the knife back into its safety holder and set it aside. "And I need to stop preparing for the worst."

Finn barely had a chance to process Kurt's hand cupping his cheek, and then soft lips were on his. It was gentle and hesitant, like Kurt didn't know what to do next. That didn't matter, though. What mattered were the emotions behind it. The promise. The _yes._

When Kurt pulled away, he looked happy. "Not fast. I can't. But okay, let's hope." He grinned suddenly, that impish little look that knocked ten years off his age, and almost bounced where he stood. "I'm going to go back in my room and you're going to stay here, because we're not going fast. But tomorrow, we'll do a little more."

"Okay," Finn said around a big, lopsided smile. His heart was fluttering like Kurt's wings on that first, windy day that had kicked all of this off. The door closed behind Kurt, but it didn't feel like a tease. It felt like another kiss goodnight before waking up into a bright new day.

Finn sent a smiley face to Rachel that night. She demanded details. He ignored her.

* * *

"Okay," Kurt said that next day.

"Okay," Finn repeated, looking down at him. They were in Kurt's room and he was convinced that they would soon get a call asking to come help outside. He didn't know how far they could get with anything. "Um, I might get called into doing chores soon...."

"No you won't," Kurt said. "A blizzard's coming in this week, there's no point in doing much outside. I told them that."

"A blizzard?" Finn asked, groaning. "But it's almost April."

Kurt shrugged. "Sorry, just the messenger."

With Finn so consumed by the idea of having to deal with fresh snow on their steep dirt driveway, he almost forgot why he was there. It took a while of Kurt smiling knowingly at him before he caught up. A smile spread on Finn's face to match. "So... what're we gonna do?"

Kurt smacked him on his chest. "You're the one who's had a real relationship before, shouldn't you tell me?"

 _He_ was supposed to be the one who knew what he was doing? This couldn't be good.

"Okay," Finn said after looking around the room. He zeroed in on the chair in the corner, sat down, and patted his lap.

Kurt hesitantly arranged himself on his legs, blushing all the while. The sensation was strange. Quinn, Santana, and Rachel were all _tiny_ , and with Kurt so close he seemed to take up twice their room. The wings poking above his shoulders added even more bulk. And yet, Kurt weighed less than half of any of those girls.

It would take some getting used to. The thought that he _would_ get used to it sent a thrill through Finn as he tried to figure out what to do next.

It wasn't how he'd gone about this sort of thing before, but then he'd been pushing as hard as he could go. They naturally fell into pawing at each other. In comparison this felt sort of awkward, but maybe that was a good thing. It might serve to put on the brakes. Plus, them being so awkward meant that they were awkward together. Like they were teaming up to face unknown territory.

(Although he was still apparently supposed to be the guide.)

"Let's see," Finn said when they'd finished arranging themselves. "I'll keep away from them so you can say 'no' if I go too far, okay?"

Kurt nodded. His eyes sparkled with anticipation. He looked incredibly into it, which put Finn at ease. After all Kurt had gone through, it had to be a good sign for him to look so excited before they'd even kissed. Right?

Grateful for his height, as it ate up most of the boost that Kurt got from sitting on his legs, Finn brought his mouth to Kurt's and kissed him gently. It was closed-mouth again, like they'd always done. He worked against him for a bit and then slowly parted his lips, hoping Kurt would follow suit.

When all the flavors of golden blood entered his mouth, fainter but definitely there, Finn groaned against Kurt. He tasted great everywhere.

Kurt was almost heartbreakingly hesitant as Finn kissed him on the mouth, and then pulled back to gently place kisses elsewhere. He clearly knew about being pushed until he came, writhing, but he'd never experienced anything softer. Not anything _real_ , at least.

Finn knew Kurt had been sold after hardly any time at the training facility. But they would have started work before they gave up on him and decided to make a quick buck. Men in scary sci-fi lab coats probably did... _things_ to him in those first few weeks, and who knew how far they'd pushed him? Who knew if they'd forced Kurt into losing all his firsts, or if that had waited for a boy who Kurt simultaneously described as incredibly kind and yet a sign of how awful the world could be?

It felt strange to have his hand running through such short hair. He knew girls could wear theirs short, but his girlfriends had all veered toward the long and luxurious. That male cut felt all the more, well, _male_ in comparison. This was so weird, Finn thought as he kissed up a strong neck and ran his hand across a flat, broad chest. He hadn't been attracted before and now he was. It was as simple as that, even though "simple" was hardly the word for what had happened to Kurt's life.

Kurt giggled when Finn's lips touched a spot below his ear. "Stop, stop," he said, pushing back.

"Ticklish?" Finn asked with a grin. Then he saw something behind Kurt and moved far enough to peer completely around the wing. Kurt turned to see whatever he was looking at.

Hercules was stretched out on Kurt's bed, watching the two of them with a highly befuddled expression. His head was tilted as far as Finn had ever seen it.

At first the boys only looked at their dog. He tilted his head to the other side and then back again, like that would make sense of what he was seeing.

A tiny giggle started deep in Finn's chest. He tried to fight it back, but Hercules just looked so confused. His failure set off Kurt, and soon they were laughing helplessly against each other as their dog continued to rock his head back and forth.

In the middle of his laughing spree, Finn was surprised when Kurt caught his face in his hands and brought him in for another kiss. The gentle uncertainty plaguing them was gone. Kurt snaked his arms around Finn's shoulders and pressed close. He felt blazing hot; he had to be hotter than a normal human, he just had to be.

This was so wild, Finn thought in flashes between kisses. His thoughts were a slideshow of memories: their meetings in the hall, the awkwardness of Kurt's attraction, how wrong everything went, and how none of that mattered when everything fell apart. That led smoothly into Kurt coming home, and Finn only later realizing with some dismay that Kurt was in that category that Finn had always been attracted to. Finally came their struggles, mistakes, and everything that had led up to this totally wild moment where he was trying not to laugh over a confused dog while Kurt was piled into his lap.

Life could be really, really strange.

"He probably thinks you're trying to eat me," Kurt said, and Finn realized he'd stopped kissing him. Everything was just a nice, pleasant buzz in his head. Being so close to Kurt like this left him feeling slightly drunk.

"Not yet," Finn said before he could help it; he was still thinking of what he'd licked off his shirt.

Kurt gasped and blushed, and then looked uncertain as to whether he should run away or bury his face in the curve of Finn's shoulder and giggle. Instead he let the moment pass, smiled down at Finn, and then relaxed against him. He extended his wings just a bit and then they curved comfortably around the pair. "Can we just sit like this for a while?"

"Okay," Finn said dopily. They seemed to have moved past the time for romance. Now it was time to just be... there together. This had to be one of those connection things he'd never felt before. Maybe he could have felt it with Rachel, if they hadn't broken up so quickly when the news about Kurt came in. Quinn and Santana had never just wanted to sit like this.

Wow, Finn thought as Kurt rested against his shoulder and Finn leaned back against the cushions. This definitely had to be what it felt like.

This was perfect. He was an idiot for not having said anything earlier. He was an idiot for not having told Kurt back in that basement.

Yes, Finn thought sleepily as he let himself drift off with Kurt's warm, light weight on top of him. This was absolutely perfect. As his eyes closed, the last thing he saw was a golden collar gleaming in the sun.


	5. Chapter 5

Finn couldn't say that he _liked_ going slowly that week. His body complained whenever he and Kurt would run their hands over each other and then pull back. But at the same time, he knew that he was being trusted with something very special. Kurt would be incredibly easy to break. To be the one who could slide his hand up under Kurt's shirt and feel the flawless skin there, and then pull back without demanding more... bearing that responsibility made him feel good. Mature.

He knew it was luck of the draw. Crazy odds had put Kurt in a position to be sold without training and to someone determined and kind enough—even with what he'd done—to take Kurt back home. Then those crazy odds had promptly given Kurt a new family member of no blood relation and stranded the two of them in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. It wasn't that Kurt had picked him, or that Finn _deserved_ to be the one person in the entire world who was getting this chance.

But he did have that chance and he didn't want to ruin it.

"I feel stupid for being so nervous," Kurt said. Their shirts were off and they were pressed together, but their pants were still securely in place. "That first night, I mean... I unzipped."

"Yeah," Finn said with a loose grin. He placed a light kiss on Kurt's mouth and pulled back again. "I mean, you don't have to...."

"Shouldn't I be the one saying that?" Kurt asked. And normally, it would be the one about to give a blowjob who would be the uncertain one. They'd be the one being reassured that they didn't have to do anything. But there was nothing normal about what Kurt had gone through. "I do. I want to."

"Okay, let me, um, get things going," Finn said as he kissed him again. Then he began to trail his lips over the curve of Kurt's chin, down the length of his neck, and across milk-pale skin that seldom saw the sun.

He had no idea what he was doing.

Santana had given him blowjobs during their reign at the top, but he realized immediately that it was very different on this end. His role there had been simple. She'd even given him instructions: sit still and let her guide things. Make noise and say what he liked. Do not grab her hair and try to hold her head in place, or he would seriously regret it.

And it had been great, really great, but he wasn't entirely sure what she'd _done_ to make it so great.

"Feels good?" Finn asked as he worked his way down. If he thought about what he was doing, then it became strange. He was about to go down on another guy. The thought of doing so on a _human_ guy made his stomach do funny flip-flops until he cast the image out of his mind. This was different. Being so near Kurt left Finn happy and content, almost like he saw from animals.

"Yes," Kurt said in a throaty voice that sounded strange coming out of him. "Yes, it feels good."

Did any bad memories linger around what was happening? Had he always been forced to pleasure others, or had they acted on their attraction? Had Kurt been forced to enjoy his own body betraying him? Finn resolved to go even more carefully and watch for any worrisome reactions.

They'd thought ahead. Both of them were in sleeping clothes, so Finn didn't have to deal with undoing a straining zipper. He focused some attention on the light trail of hair leading under the elastic waistband until Kurt groaned again. "Please," he said. "Please, Finn. I want this."

He'd probably figured that Finn was holding off until Kurt was ready. No, Finn had been delaying until _he_ could figure out what to do next. With a determined frown, he decided to imagine himself in Kurt's place and go through the steps that he would like to feel. That should probably work.

First he'd want his pants to come down. They'd edge just over his erection, which was already leaking, and then be moved totally out of the way.

(Kurt was so much paler than he was. He'd been expecting a shocking red contrast with his light skin, but realized in the next second that was impossible. There wasn't any red blood inside Kurt, not any more. Focus, Finn. Focus.)

Next he'd want to be touched gently, so he could get used to the sensation of someone there. Finn stroked down the shaft and grinned when Kurt sucked in a gasp through his teeth. Yeah, this was probably going right. Letting his hand linger down at the base, Finn considered the logistics from the receiver's end once more. He'd want it like this, this, and this....

Cupping Kurt's balls left the boy squirming, and Finn felt a surge of pride as he returned attention to the shaft with his other hand. It should have been odd to lean forward to approach _it_. He'd certainly never pictured this before Kurt's changes. Even afterward, he'd wanted Kurt without really considering the full logistics. He just wanted to be around Kurt. He wanted to make him happy. He wanted to see him.

Now he was. He was seeing... _him._ That was definitely, no questions asked, a cock. Touching it definitely made Kurt feel good. The precum was glistening over the head, meaning they were definitely heading for a messy, complete, load-shooting finish with Finn right there.

Finn had the sudden memory of tasting the streak across his shirt. What if this was all the same: good? His curiosity overrode any lingering hesitation about crossing that line. With one last glance up at Kurt, who nodded rather desperately, Finn brought his head down and very, very carefully licked.

Oh _God_ he tasted amazing. Between that flavor and the breathy plea filling his ears, Finn nearly came in his pajama pants. Determined to get more, he began licking and sucking in an eager, sloppy mess. Warmth swept him as he heard Kurt's noises of pleasure. His skin tingled, his groin ached for release. He was affected by Angels, Finn thought just at the edge of his consciousness as he took his hand off Kurt's balls and stuck it down his pants. He was affected a _lot_.

"Finn," Kurt gasped. "You... that's...." He broke off into wordless noises of pleasure and fumbled for Finn's head. Thankfully, he only pawed at it and didn't try to hold Finn in place.

That hadn't been a plea to stop. Finn could just comprehend that much. He felt that sweet flavor seep across his tongue, saw Kurt clutch the bedsheets with pleasure, and felt himself pulse and release against his pants. Finn groaned around Kurt's cock. His pleasure was so complete that he almost forgot to finish. He might have, without more tiny little noises coming from the boy under him.

It took him a second to refocus. He'd been _giving_ the blowjob, and yet Finn still came first. He'd never lasted long, true, but this had just been so intense.

No wonder people paid so much.

Finn eased his hand out of his pants and cupped Kurt again. He managed to build to a crescendo, rather than just going full-out from the first time his cheeks hollowed. Kurt came into Finn's mouth with a long, pleased groan. It tasted just as amazing as before, even if the texture made him gag before he swallowed, and Finn collapsed into a happy heap next to Kurt. "Hey."

Kurt didn't say anything. He stared at the ceiling and looked overwhelmed, but stayed silent.

"You okay?" Finn asked after a while of waiting.

"Thank you," Kurt finally whispered. "That's probably how it's supposed to be."

Finn's initial, wounded instinct, that it had been merely _okay_ , soon faded. He meant that it was supposed to feel that way in his heart, when it was with someone he trusted, when it was between equals, when he'd chosen all of it. He didn't know for sure, though. So he could only assume. He could only say probably.

Sometimes Finn just wanted to cry at how unfair Kurt's life was.

"It's about to snow," Kurt said. "It'll be bad. They'll cancel school, I bet."

Finn glanced over his shoulder. The world had gone dark and grey without him noticing. What would have been a sunset was nothing more than a dimming of the lights.

"Come back here after you wash up?" Kurt asked in a small, hopeful voice.

That would happen next in a normal relationship. They'd cuddle, they'd talk. It broke Finn's heart even more to know how desperately Kurt wanted to try all of this after he'd been sold. Yes, he'd been sold to someone who self-corrected much earlier than most of the world would. But going through anything had been too much, and even if nothing had happened, he could never be equals with someone who'd gotten him as a present.

"Going to take a shower," Finn said. "And I will."

Kurt smiled. Finn took that sight with him to the shower, where not all of the warmth running over him came from the water. He cleaned quickly but thoroughly, toweled his hair until it was barely damp, and then looked at the fresh pajamas he'd grabbed from his room. After a moment of hesitation, Finn ignored them. He opened the door to Kurt's room and cleared his throat. Apparently, orgasm's fog was too tempting to resist; Kurt had fallen asleep. He could see Kurt turning groggily over in bed and tried clearing his throat again, but he was clearly being ignored. "Kurt."

Kurt mumbled something.

"Kurt," Finn repeated more insistently.

"What?" Kurt yawned without opening his eyes.

"Will you at least look at me?" Finn asked. His hands rested neatly on his hips. This was a _moment_ , he knew. It was a big deal to strip down. It was a huge deal to be close like this. And that's why he'd done it then: as a snowstorm rolled in, howling, where the only safe place to be was under a layer of blankets. So long as he was outside of bed, the only thing he could think of was how he longed to be in one. A bed with another warm body already there would be even better.

Kurt lifted his head, opened his eyes, and promptly bit down on a mad giggle. Finn had a moment of picturing how he must look: a pale figure in the darkness, nude except for a pair of socks. "Oh my _God_ , Finn!" Kurt half-laughed, half-hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Getting really cold, can you let me in?"

Kurt started. Finn could see his eyes reflect the faint light in the room. "What?" He'd expected Finn to return, but clearly not like what he was seeing. He'd expected them to fall asleep bundled up, like they hadn't done anything.

"Just a thought," Finn said. He was beginning to feel incredibly stupid and exposed. He knew they were comfortable together, but why would he think Kurt would want to be surprised by his dick swinging loose? Oh God, why had he done this? This was the worst possible thing to do to someone who'd—

"Get in," Kurt finally said in a tone that bordered on disbelief. He scooted toward the far wall, making room for Finn. Finn bolted for the exposed part of the mattress as much for warmth as for his surging emotions.

Burying himself under the covers, Finn soon felt like a puppy wrapped in a blanket. He smiled blissfully and almost forgot where he was, until he heard Kurt's amused question again about just _what_ he'd been thinking. Kurt was facing him with the wings hanging off the far side of the bed. Rolling toward him felt warm and intimate. "You wanted me to come back. So. I came back to say hi."

"A naked hi," Kurt said, clearly amused.

"If you were okay with that," Finn said. "I mean... I didn't take my clothes off to _do_ anything," he said and saw relief in Kurt's eyes. He wondered if he knew it was there. So he wasn't ready for anything more, not yet. That was good to know.

Kurt squirmed closer to him, and soon Finn could feel the warmth of their torsos against each other. But he'd pulled his pants back up, and despite Finn being mostly naked against him, Kurt kept his on.

This would have to go slowly. That was okay. They had all the time in the world.

* * *

Finn and Kurt went down for breakfast together the next morning. They'd succumbed a little too totally to their privacy, and had turned into hermits. It was good to see everyone in the family. "Hey," Finn said as he grabbed some pancakes. "Are we bothering with any shoveling?"

"Nah," Burt said. "Forecast has it shooting up really warm starting on Monday. It'll all melt."

"Cool," Finn said and took his plate to the couch. An old movie was playing and he settled in to watch. Kurt was already there and offered him part of the blanket.

"We've hardly seen you two," Burt said as he sat heavily down in a recliner and joined them. Carole took an armchair at the opposite side.

"Well," Carole said firmly as she arranged her own blanket, and then put her plate on her lap. "They'll both be grown men soon, Burt. They need their own space."

"Fair enough. Just so long as you still do all your chores."

"Absolutely," Finn promised.

Kurt echoed him, but then frowned. "Oh, Finn, stay still. You've got...." He licked his finger and then trailed it across Finn's chin, presumably to catch a drop of syrup. Although he almost moved to lick it off himself, he caught the motion and instead wiped his hand clean on a paper towel.

Finn smiled at him, but then noticed the curious looks from their parents. "I had syrup on my chin," he explained.

"Oh," Burt said, although he oddly didn't seem satisfied by the explanation as he turned up the volume on the movie.

They watched for a while in comfortable silence. It was so wild to think that, just last night, he'd been curled up naked in bed with someone. Everything had been so _easy._ It felt almost better than the sex, and Finn had really always thought that was girl territory. But no: this connection stuff was great. Huh, Finn thought after that. Better than 'the sex.' He'd put that label on it even though nothing had, uh, gone anywhere inside anyone. Maybe the term was more flexible than he thought. After all, _he_ was more flexible than he thought.

It was difficult to fight back giggles, and he coughed and hemmed until he had control of himself again. Kurt looked at him weirdly. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Finn said. He caught Kurt's eye and tried to communicate that the previous night had just overwhelmed him; from the knowing smile he got in return, Kurt apparently got it. Leaning forward to put his plate on the coffee table, Finn then slung his arms across the back of the couch.

His hand brushed against feathers. Kurt inhaled, but then let it out and seemed nothing more than relaxed. Finn left it there.

"I'm going to go check on the girls," Burt later said. He gathered the plates and dumped them in the dishwasher, then headed upstairs. The movie kept playing.

In a tiny, gentle movement, Finn's thumb began moving in circles. He was only barely aware that he was doing it. Kurt slumped ever more contently into the couch. As he did, he turned toward Finn like he would soon lean against him.

When Burt came back down the stairs, he stopped on the bottom stair and didn't move for a while.

"Burt?" Carole asked, turning toward him. Finn and Kurt followed suit; Finn's hand went idle against the couch cushions as he moved. "Is something wrong?"

"I. Uh." Burt blinked enough that Finn wondered if he was having a stroke or something. At least Kurt was right there. "Kurt, could you head upstairs for a second? I just need to ask Finn something."

"Sure," Kurt said in clear confusion. He looked between everyone, shrugged, and pushed away from the couch and walked past his father.

Burt didn't say anything until he heard the sound of a door closing high overhead. That gave Finn ample time to worry. Was he in trouble? "You know, uh, Finn," Burt began awkwardly, "I asked Kurt about how the two of you were... doing together before we decided to move. You know. Back in Lima."

"Okay," Finn said. Why was Burt talking about Ohio?

"And he said you were... getting along. Which...." Burt's chuckle was thin and strained. "Couldn't say much about that to him, because it's not like he has other people around. You know?"

Did Burt think they'd been fighting or something? Of course they got along. They'd been doing _way better_ than just getting along.

Carole seemed to realize something and said intently, "Burt?"

He shot her a helpless look, and then refocused on Finn. "Are you two... getting along again?"

"We argued a little, but we got over it," Finn said. Not only did that avoid talking about the sex, but it was one hundred percent honest.

"And what did you argue about?" Carole prompted. They seemed to be walking on eggshells and he had no idea why. What had even caused this string of questions?

If he told a complete lie, he'd probably be caught in it. Finn decided to again hew as closely to the truth as he could manage. "Um. It was about how I could date girls at school if I wanted, but he never sees anyone outside the family. I think he was sad."

They ignored how that didn't really establish what they might have argued about, and Burt carefully replied, "But Finn, bud... you're not dating girls at school."

"No I'm not. Am I supposed to be getting married or something?" Finn asked with a sudden concern that part of graduating high school was the expectation that he would carry on the family name. (Never mind that they already were handling that.)

"No. No, this isn't about...." Burt ripped off his baseball cap, ran a hand roughly across his head, and shoved it back on. He looked flustered. What was going on?

"Finn's right, Burt," Carole said, although she looked heartsick. "Kurt's been through... an awful lot, and he won't see anyone else in the world. I can't believe I'm saying this, but this is so far away from normal that... Burt, look at me."

He ran his hand over his face, now.

"Burt, you have to deal with the fact that Kurt got... hurt without trying to keep him as a child forever." She looked incredibly unsettled over whatever the problem was, but continued, "And you did already tell them this was all right, so long as Finn didn't force anything. Whatever we think about that fact now, you did."

Okay, seriously, what was going on?

"Burt—"

"You know what I should do?" Burt said loudly. "I should go check out the land while we've still got fresh snow on it, and see where it didn't fall much. I'll mark those places for cabins. If trees catch the snow, then we don't have to worry about stress on the roofs."

"Burt!" Carole said insistently.

"Love to stick around, but I gotta go head out before it warms up any," he said, though he didn't sound the least bit sorry. "That's when the snow gets slippery. I want to walk on it when it still crunches."

Finn blinked as Burt made a beeline for the master bedroom, presumably to get suited up for a walk through the snowy forest. How weird.

Carole looked annoyed for a moment, but visibly schooled her expression as she turned to Finn. "Sweetie," she began. "Is there anything you want to tell us?"

He took a few seconds to search his memory. "No, I don't think so."

"Nothing?" she prompted.

He definitely didn't want to tell them what was going on upstairs. He was doing okay with his homework. Nothing else came to mind. "No, I'm really fine, Mom."

"Okay," she said after fumbling for a few seconds. "Well, okay then. How's Kurt doing? After your argument?"

"Kurt's fine, I promise," Finn said. "Don't worry, I'm there for him." Heh. That was one way to put it.

"I know you...." She trailed off. "I have so many problems with this, Finn. But I have a bigger problem with what was done to him. It's just... to think that he might be alone for _decades_ and have the only thing he ever felt be...." Her eyes closed. When they opened again, they were teary. "I think this is wrong. But what happened to him was so, so much worse. This isn't a normal situation we're facing."

"Right," Finn said cautiously, as he had no idea what was really being discussed. It felt like the topic had changed a half-dozen times.

"You know that Kurt can't leave here, right?"

"Right," Finn said slowly.

"So you need to look out for any problems with... I mean, you just...." Her weak smile wavered further. "You need to be very careful with him, all right? I know it's just the wings again, but that's still a lot. Okay?"

"Okay," Finn said. The wings again? Did she think Kurt was feeling sad over how he looked? Wait, _wait._ His eyes widened. Back in Ohio, he knew that Kurt had finally told Burt about the touching. They thought that's what was going on: that he was just touching Kurt again, with both of them fully dressed! He laughed first with tension over the truth being so close, and then with relief over them landing safely on another explanation. "Yeah, okay, Mom. I totally understand what you're saying. Don't worry. I will be really, really careful."

"Thank you, Finn," Carole said, and hugged him. "I know this is very strange, but we're all just muddling through as best we can."

"I should go tell Kurt we're not talking about him any more," Finn said after a beat. "He's probably wondering why he got kicked out."

"All right. Just...." Her smile wavered. "I don't blame him for needing it. I don't blame you for being the only person here. But just... don't let us know, all right?"

"I am really okay with that," Finn said, and then headed briskly to the third floor. Kurt looked up nervously when he entered, but relaxed when Finn closed the door behind him and laughed. This was perfect insurance. He couldn't have planned things any better. "So long as we don't make too much noise," Finn said with a grin, "I really don't think we have to worry about them coming upstairs."


	6. Chapter 6

It turned out that they could make noise. They just had to hide it.

Finn pushed Kurt gently away, curious to see what would happen when the hot water from the showerhead beat steadily against his back. From the expression that earned, every single droplet was a tiny little finger touching him. No wonder some of his showers lasted forever. He prodded Kurt until he tilted his head and let the water rinse away the expensive goop from his hair.

Before they'd stepped into the giant shower, Kurt insisted that he not be distracted from its actual purpose until he was thoroughly clean. Once they were in there, hot and slick against each other, his mind had wandered.

Wings flicked open and shut like Kurt was at some giant bird bath, while Finn ran hands through his hair until he was confident that all the conditioner was gone. "Okay, _now_ ," Finn said, finally granting Kurt permission to move toward what they both clearly wanted. They were both erect and every accidental brush was wonderful torture.

Kurt only groaned and pushed further back into the water. With a raised eyebrow, Finn wondered if all showers were like this, or if the wings were even more sensitive when he'd been aroused through other means. Time to find out, Finn decided, grinning. He spun Kurt around and ignored the tiny whine of protest he got as he lost the direct water pressure against his back. "Kneel down," he whispered.

Clearly thinking that Finn was asking for oral pleasure, Kurt began to turn around again as he sank to the tiles. Finn held him straight. The water beat down on the top of Kurt's head, the top of the wings, and Finn's torso. No matter how turned on he was, the shower striking the top joints of the wings couldn't possibly be enough for Kurt, and he whined again.

There: he had Kurt positioned just right. Finn thrust forward, rubbing the underside of his cock against the broad, firm fleshy part of the wings. Kurt gasped, palmed the wall in front of him for support, and then arched into the motion. Feathers wrapped around Finn's back. Kurt had extended the wings, holding Finn close, and so every thrust of Finn's stimulated Kurt no matter which way he was moving.

For Finn's part, simply rubbing his cock like that wouldn't normally be enough, no matter how soft and warm the wings were. The untouched top should have been screaming for friction. The sheer unbelievable perfection of what he was doing more than made up for it, though. He had an Angel on his knees in front of him, who wanted everything that was happening, and Finn was _fucking his wings._ Wings that were strong, elegant, and beautiful. Wings that were the symbol of being eternally young and perfect. Wings that Finn felt twitching against him at night, because he was also lucky enough to have that.

Secure in the knowledge that the water was making their noises, Finn didn't hold back a pleased groan when he came. He thrust hard one last time and squeezed the wings as he shot into Kurt's wet hair. Kurt was still supporting himself against the wall, and had never touched his erection as Finn ground against him. But between the sounds and the stimulation against his back, he came hard just as Finn pulsed one last time.

Kurt had barely finished before he stood, turned, and pulled Finn into a deep, long kiss. The water slicked his hair clean again, and the water striking his back meant that his inhuman biology kept him hard against Finn's thigh.

Perfect, Finn thought as he finally let Kurt stand with the water pounding his back. That time, he was the one who dropped to his knees.

* * *

The first wildflowers appeared and they still shared a bed. Finn graduated and took a photograph with his proud parents while Kurt waited on the roof. He did so at his insistence; he wanted all attention in the room to stay with Finn. Kurt congratulated him privately that night.

"Hey," Finn said to his webcam the next day. He was still pleasantly rumpled and hadn't bothered cleaning up before he talked to Rachel. By that point she simply felt like a sister. Of course, considering what he did with his brother....

Stepbrother, Finn corrected. He definitely wanted to think _step_ brother.

"Congratulations, Mr. High School Graduate," she said enthusiastically. He'd said something similar to her a week earlier, and had even looked up Quinn's school to confirm the same timeline. They were all to the next stage in their lives. "How does it feel?"

"So good," Finn said. "It's so, so good to be out of that school. I went through being popular and unpopular at McKinley, but it was on a whole different level here. They were nice, you know? But it was like they didn't even know what I was."

Huh, he thought. Phrasing it that way gave him a different perspective. There was only one other person in his graduating class who hadn't been in the district since kindergarten. She'd moved up years ago from the nearest big town, and even though she knew all those local references that Finn had yet to figure out, they'd still sometimes poke fun at the "city girl" when she complained about the weather. Finn, the towering, mysterious quarterback who refused to share any real information about his family, was someone they just couldn't classify. Sometimes he really was less of a "someone" than a "something." Maybe that was how Kurt felt.

"You're staying around there, right?" she asked, clearly just verifying. They knew each other's plans.

"Yeah. Now that I won't have to go into town every day no matter what, it sounds like Kurt wants to walk into stores with Dad and me. You know, so he won't be hiding so much." He saw that Rachel was smiling strangely and asked, "What?"

"You called him Dad."

"I... oh." Finn smiled back. "Wow. Huh. I guess I did."

Apparently Rachel decided to give him a minute to process that, as she waited a bit before she said anything else. "My plan is still Carleton." Some little liberal arts college in the Midwest was a completely different life plan than what she'd had before their paths changed, but she said it had a great pre-law program. And she liked that it would keep her relatively near her family, as well. "Oh! Is that...?"

Finn turned at the sound of the closing door. "Yeah, he just came upstairs. Want to say hi?" Her big grin gave a clear answer, and so he retrieved Kurt from his room and brought him to his monitor. "Here's Kurt," he said needlessly.

"Hi," Kurt said with a little wiggle of his fingers. "Congratulations again." He turned to Finn and added, "And to you again too, of course."

Rachel's awkward smile was mirrored on Finn, and it took him a beat to understand why he was reacting that way. Kurt's words being directed at both of them made it very apparent that they couldn't return them, and that he was the odd one out. Apparently deciding to take a different tactic and change the topic entirely, Rachel said, "I'm so happy that the two of you are... well, happy."

Kurt gawked at the screen, and then shoved Finn's shoulder. "Finn!"

"What?" Finn asked cheerfully.

"You told her?"

"He needed a shoulder to lean on when he thought he'd upset you," Rachel said soothingly. "Then he wanted to tell me that things had gone better, and, well, it snowballed from there."

"Oh my God," Kurt said, but he laughed as he did. Finn guessed that he wasn't in too much trouble. "I, well. Yes. It's been very nice."

"Nice," Rachel repeated.

"Unlike Finn, apparently, I'm not going to give any sordid details." Kurt looked ready to say something else, but then hesitated, shook his head, and stayed quiet. He didn't look _upset_ , but Finn couldn't tell what was going on inside his head.

After a glance at Rachel, who looked as confused as he felt, Finn asked, "Are you okay?"

"I am," Kurt said thoughtfully. "Someone knows and it still feels real. It feels safe. I'm okay." His attention focused again. "But please don't tell anyone else, Rachel. Or Finn."

"I won't," they both promised. Finn only felt a little bad for having told Rachel, since Kurt was apparently fine with it. With her knowing and being someone he could talk to, he was all right with letting Kurt set the pace for moving forward.

"Thanks." Kurt bit his lip, seemed to consider something, and then leaned over to kiss Finn on the cheek. He smiled impishly at the screen and said, "Well, Finn caught me right before I was going to stretch these things, so I'm going to go take advantage of this beautiful day."

"Bye," Rachel said dreamily, and then practically swooned at Finn when it was just the two of them alone again. "That is the best thing I've ever seen in my _life_ , Finn."

"You are weirdly okay with seeing your ex with someone else, you know," he laughed, but knew they were both well beyond expecting their lives to travel the same path. "Well... thanks. For everything."

"Sure." She reached out and touched her camera like she was brushing her hand across his face. "Good luck. I hope everything works out."

"Thanks," Finn said. "To you, too. Good luck with joining that choir at Carleton."

Rachel laughed. "I sent an audition tape and they told me not to worry about it until I got there. I've probably already terrified them." After a bit of mutual enjoyment over her newfound ability to poke fun at herself, she said, "I'll talk to you later. And really, good luck."

Though he appreciated the sentiment, Finn wondered why she'd said it so intently. Kurt had worried before they'd started... whatever it was they had, but now he was comfortable. The sex was great, the feelings were a big comfy pile of love and affection, and now Finn didn't even have to leave their property unless he wanted to. He knew it jinxed things to even think the words, but really: what could go wrong?

* * *

If Finn's confidence jinxed what they had, that bad fortune took an awfully long time to show up.

"Where are you?" Finn asked with a grin as he slowly spun around the clearing and looked for any telling flashes of white. Hide and seek might be a children's game, but _three-dimensional_ hide and seek was less like a kid's game and more like a video game come to life. He was being stalked by some big wolf, or a zombie, or the Predator—

"Got you!" Kurt said as he tackled him from above and knocked Finn into the thick grass under them. He sat proudly on top of him, like his weight could actually hold Finn down. "You did almost see me this time."

"Just wait, with a little more practice I'll track you every single time," Finn said as he caught Kurt's arms in his hands and rolled him flat against the grass. But the hold was loose and Kurt was able to stretch out luxuriously. Despite his greater size, Finn scooted down to use Kurt's chest for a pillow. That way he could keep his wings stretched open without Finn's weight pressing down on one. "This is nice," he said as he squinted at the sun-bright sky and waited for his eyes to adjust.

"It is," Kurt said as he stroked Finn's hair. He was able to stare at the brilliant summer day without blinking. It was almost the end of July and they were heading into the hottest weeks of the year. Even so, Kurt wanted to be out in nature instead of being blasted by air conditioning. Finn had to push himself to get used to the heat, but afterward he'd found things to enjoy outside in summer.

The biggest positive, of course, was how happy Kurt was whenever trees and sky surrounded him. He was so relaxed, confident... free.

They dozed under the sun for a while, confident that they were almost at the edge of Kurt's collar's range and so no one would stumble across them. "I want you," Kurt whispered, so softly that Finn thought he'd misheard.

He pushed himself up on his elbows. "What?"

"I want you," Kurt repeated. "Please?"

Finn frowned. He was pretty sure that Kurt had already "had" him in almost every way. Okay, they'd never tried penetration, and before all of this Finn probably would have thought that meant that they hadn't really done anything. Now, though, it was just one thing a pairing could do together, and a thing that had some particularly bad memories tied up in it for one of those people. So he'd never brought it up.

When he saw the soft, nervous hope in Kurt's eyes, he remembered an old conversation about replacing bad memories with better ones. "You sure?" he asked gently. The boy he'd once been would have been shocked at how easily he brushed away the offer, but Kurt was a lot more important than having his dick feel good for a few minutes.

"Please?" Kurt said one more time and fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out a small, half-empty tube of lube and pressed it into Finn's hand. As Finn stared at it in surprise, Kurt smiled bashfully and explained, "I've... I've tried things. On my own, when you were off running errands. To see how it felt."

Finn felt himself harden at the image of Kurt slowly working fingers or toys in and out, and confirming that he could feel pleasure instead of fear. It was quite possibly the fastest erection in his memory.

"I've been doing it for a month," Kurt said when Finn didn't reply. His eyes flicked down to Finn's crotch, then back up. "I think I'm ready. I know we don't have to. I know you don't think I _have_ to do this for you. But I want to. For me."

Managing to laugh a little breathlessly, Finn adjusted himself and said, "You could have waited until we were closer to the house. I'm not wearing my loose jeans."

"No, Finn," Kurt said, catching his cheek and pulling him close. "Here. Under the sun."

"If I get a sunburn," Finn said after hesitating long enough for Kurt to change his mind, "you're healing me."

Kurt giggled nervously, but nodded. "I know we don't have to," he said as Finn slowly undressed him. His skin gleamed under the intense light. "But everything that went wrong before, we've... we've done. Except for this." He saw something in Finn's eyes and added, "This hasn't just been replacing those memories for me, Finn. It has been more. But there's this one last thing."

Finn hadn't realized he'd felt nervous until Kurt voiced those fears: like he'd just been a tool for Kurt to get over things, and once he was fully used, Kurt could discard him. It was good to hear that wasn't so. "Are you sure you're ready?"

"You don't have to do anything," Kurt said thinly. "I... I got ready before we left, I should still be fine." He saw Finn's eyes widen—that hadn't been what Finn meant—and added, "I've done it before when we were going outside. But I decided I wasn't ready and didn't say anything. I am today. I promise."

Oh. So Kurt was _physically_ ready. Finn wasn't positive what that meant, but it apparently took some work. It had probably been with his hand or with those toys. All of this explained why the tube of lube wasn't full, he supposed. How many times had Kurt prepared himself, Finn wondered, and been walking around next to him all... all _ready?_

Kurt's hand pressed against his jeans. It was a possessive thing he did when he saw Finn's precum starting to soak through, like he reveled in having caused it. "Let me get you undressed," he said softly and reached for Finn's shirt with his other hand.

He felt so exposed and inferior as Kurt worked his clothes off. Kurt had been lying there completely naked, and he was a flawless part of the landscape like a flower. His skin didn't have a mark on it and his proportions were inhumanly balanced. He didn't even have awkward stray hairs; he certainly looked male enough, but everything was placed just _so._

Finn had an ugly mole on his hip, body hair that sometimes grew in spotty patches, and one nipple that was just slightly higher than the other. Kurt's blood had healed a lot of Finn's injuries, but they didn't heal the body he'd been born with. For a long time he'd been okay with that body, but then he'd seen someone who was literally, magically _perfect._

Then Kurt looked at him like he was the perfect one, and all those fears faded. He knelt down with his big, clumsy body and winced. "Rock," he said as he pulled it out from under his knee. "Are you sure you want to do this outside?"

"Yes," Kurt whispered. Feathers fluttered against grass and petals. His fingers clutched the soft dirt and dug in.

That was that, then. Finn focused on him more and realized what he meant by "ready": Kurt looked open and loose for him, at least compared to normal, and a sudden wave of "this is real, and it's about to happen" nearly knocked Finn down on top of him. "What should I...?"

"Put on a lot," Kurt said, gesturing to the tube. "It'll be cold. You can let it sit on your hand, or—"

Finn had already stroked down his shaft with lube-covered fingers, and he hissed at the sudden chill. As Kurt fought back laughter, he narrowed his eyes at him and swiped around Kurt's hole to share the experience. It was July, after all. They had to stay _cool._ They met each other's eyes and started laughing, which was good. They needed that break in the tension.

"You, um." Kurt swallowed. "I looked things up. To know how it goes." His eyes began to glaze over just a bit, like he was going somewhere else. "I mean... how it's supposed to go."

Sadly, Finn knew where his mind was going; there was really only one option. "Hey," he said gently. For a moment he thought of telling Kurt to look at him, but he knew all those feelings about his old owner were _complicated._ Looking at another boy who was _complicated_ might not be that much better. Finn glanced around them for a second, smiled, and said, "Look at the sun."

Kurt made a curious noise.

"Just look at the sun, okay? You're out here where you want to be, you picked this, and you wanted to do it under the sun."

"The sun," Kurt repeated and looked over Finn's shoulder. His eyes gleamed as they caught the day's light.

Between Kurt's behaviors taking a while to change and an owner who'd lived in a suburban house, Finn really doubted that this had ever happened outdoors. He wouldn't have wanted it before and it wouldn't have been offered. Of course, this had never been "offered," he corrected as he leaned forward and kissed him. Kurt kissed back, but when Finn pulled away he saw that Kurt's eyes were still open so he could catch the sun.

"Go slow," Kurt whispered. He was barely blinking, but his eyes weren't tearing up.

He so didn't know what he was doing, Finn thought as he felt to align himself and felt a shiver of pleasure when his hand made contact with his cock. Go slow, he repeated to himself as he pressed forward and felt pressure that might or might not be painful.

Kurt drew in a sharp breath through his teeth. His fingers tore grass.

"I can stop," Finn said instantly. The deep dark corners of his brain were telling him to go harder, faster, and deeper, but they'd done a lot together to lead up to that moment. They knew each other's bodies well and trusted each other to behave. If Kurt was reacting like that, he might be in pain... or afraid.

After shaking his head, Kurt opened his eyes again and looked at the sun. He breathed the mountain air in and out and listened to the wind rustling across their bodies. A few seconds later, Finn felt some of the pressure around him ease. Kurt had relaxed. "You okay?" he asked. If Kurt wasn't okay, that probably meant that he wasn't seeing Finn, and that was _not_ a role Finn wanted to play.

"Yeah," Kurt said after a few more deep breaths. "Yes, I am. I'm... I'm here."

When Finn moved forward again, Kurt drew in another breath. But Finn knew that reaction: pure pleasure. He pressed slowly even as his body screamed to speed up, until he had moved into Kurt as far as he could. _Oh,_ he thought. His mind was fluttering in short twitches like Kurt's wings against the grass. Kurt was hot and tight around him, and with the sun on his back Finn felt ready to ignite like a matchhead.

The pleasure on his cock was more insistent than what he felt elsewhere, but no stronger. Just like simply being around Kurt had made him happy, being _in_ him and having Kurt _want_ it was like some amazing drug. He felt dopey and happy, like he was already coming down, and he hadn't even come close yet to orgasming. It was incredible.

"Finn," Kurt gasped against him. "Go. I'm good, go."

It took those words to snap him out of it. He'd actually needed a reminder to start thrusting, Finn realized. It was almost enough to make him laugh again. Being in Kurt meant that he was almost perfectly happy, and so the only good thing about starting to pull out was that he could then go back in. And he did, in and out, feeling the tight ring of muscle and wondering if they could just stay locked together forever.

He felt his balls tightening after too few thrusts and came sooner than he wanted. Pleasure rolled through him in waves that ended all too quickly. Kurt had occasionally moved his legs, and Finn knew vaguely that there was some spot that was supposed to feel really good, but they hadn't found it before he poured into Kurt. He allowed himself a few breaths of relaxation before he reached between them and pumped Kurt until he spilled against Finn. When he did, Finn could feel muscles clench and relax around him.

"Wow," Kurt finally said.

"Good?" Finn asked hopefully.

Kurt caught his cheeks in his hands, kissed him, and then nodded. "That's how it can be," he said, managing to sound both happy and sad. "We'll have to practice. Make it even better."

"I am so okay with that," Finn said with a grin. Hopefully some of those practices could happen inside, he thought as they separated and then collapsed closely onto the grass. His legs were covered in pine needles and tiny pebbles, and he would have preferred a mattress. But then, he thought as he traced his fingers along the arm, shoulder, and neck of this perfect, perfect person who'd trusted him enough for access, Kurt wanted the sun. Pretty much everything they'd done had been determined by what Kurt wanted. Maybe it made him a sap, Finn thought as he trailed his fingers across the golden collar, and then up to Kurt's cheek, but he was really okay with that.


	7. Chapter 7

"I like that you don't have to go to school any more," Kurt said as he trailed his finger down Finn's chest. For those still of age, it was the first week of classes.

Finn laughed. "I like it, too. School sucked."

"I'm not arguing," Kurt said with a lopsided smile.

Finn never knew what to say when he felt like he'd accidentally reminded Kurt of how unfair the world was to him. Since he seemed to be handling this instance, he left well enough alone. Kurt rose from bed, stretched, and walked to the nearest window. It took Finn a few seconds of staring before he realized Kurt had started talking again. The wings were just _really big_ and were attached to a naked Angel. Anyone would stare. But most people would never even have the chance, unless they were as lucky as him. Which no one in the entire world was.

Right, right, Kurt was talking.

"It'll get colder soon," he said as he traced his fingers across the pane of glass. "We'll have to stay inside."

Did that mean they'd have to stop being with each other so much? No, their parents were really good about respecting their privacy. Sometimes Carole gave him strange glances, and Burt had let himself focus almost entirely on their new daughters, but they were giving them their space. They would have to be quieter, though, Finn allowed.

"Why are you smiling like that?" Kurt asked as he half-turned around.

"This has just been really nice," Finn said. He wasn't the type to track anniversaries, but he thought they'd had somewhere between five and six months of this. It was so easy. He didn't know relationships could _be_ so straightforward and simple. Kurt was still Kurt, but just like he'd changed in a way that made Finn look at him differently, he'd also changed in a way that made everything easier. There were fewer things he cared about, now, and he cared about them much more. It didn't feel as if there were a thousand tiny little landmines scattered around for Finn to step on, like there had been with Quinn.

"It has been nice," Kurt said. He looked thoughtfully back to the window, and then turned fully to face Finn. "Um, I don't think this winter will be as bad as last year."

"Uh huh," Finn said as he looked down the length of Kurt's body. He wondered if it would be bad form to lunge across the room and try to get his mouth over Kurt's dick like a ring toss. Probably.

"But there will still be some days when I'll just want to sleep," Kurt continued.

Finn nodded vaguely and palmed himself through his pajama pants as he felt himself stiffen. When Kurt saw what he was doing and began to rise as well, Finn reconsidered the ring toss idea.

"So, um," Kurt said as Finn stood and began to stalk toward him, "I had an idea."

"Sure, sounds good," Finn said and sank to his knees. He knew that despite being polite enough to swallow, Kurt didn't really like the taste of his come. Fortunately the same thing _definitely_ wasn't true for him, Finn thought as he leaned forward and worked toward his prize. Whatever Kurt had planned to say, it waited until he'd shot into Finn's mouth and was curled up languidly against him.

"I had an idea," Kurt repeated with a sleepy, blissful smile. "We could go somewhere warmer and drier for the winter. Not the whole winter. Just when I know it'll knock me out."

"I doubt anyone would mind getting out of the worst weather," Finn said dubiously, "but I don't know if they'd be up for driving two babies around just so you can have some vacation weeks. Especially since we'd be driving through snow until we got out of the mountains."

"No, no," Kurt corrected. He looked up from where he was sprawled against Finn. His eyes were insane, Finn thought, and had to refocus on things besides mile-long eyelashes and inhuman colors. "Just you and me."

"Oh." Finn frowned. "But we wouldn't be able to go far enough. I mean, you can only go a mile."

"I was thinking that...." Kurt gathered his nerve. He sounded hesitant enough that Finn was struck with sudden unease as to what could be so significant. This was like having sex for the first time or getting married or something. Wait. Kurt wasn't going to propose, right? "I was thinking that maybe you could take over the controller from Dad."

"Oh," Finn said blankly.

That was so huge that his brain struggled to process it.

It was way bigger than a marriage proposal.

If he owned the controller, Kurt's entire life was in his hands. Not just hurting him—which of course Finn would never do—but knowing that he was the one responsible for deciding what happened next. He would never sell Kurt. Ever. But if it were his thumbprint on the scanner, he would be the one who would get offers in the millions. Not Burt. He'd be the one who had to face people down and say that no, Kurt was not for sale, no matter the price.

And Kurt trusted him to say "no" every single time. He trusted Finn enough to believe that given the chance to sell him into a possible eternity of torture, Finn wouldn't.

Finn's heart beat so quickly that he was sure it must be audible to Kurt. "What?" he croaked. Fear began to grow inside him. He didn't fully understand why. This was good, right? It was good that Kurt trusted him?

"It was just a thought," Kurt said hopefully. "Then we could go anywhere we wanted to get out of the snow. And I wouldn't... I wouldn't feel like such a child. I'd feel more like an equal. You know?"

"I have to think about it," Finn said.

"Why?" Kurt asked. He looked suddenly and incredibly vulnerable. His nudity wasn't helping. "Is something wrong?"

"I can't... I don't know...." Finn took a few deep breaths and landed on the right answer. "If I ask Burt, he'd want to know why and we'd probably have to tell him everything. So I have to figure out what to do there, okay?"

"Oh, you're right," Kurt mused. "Just so you know... I'm all right with telling him. He'll be surprised and it won't be easy. But we can't hide this forever, you know?"

"Yeah," Finn said. He swallowed again. "Wow. Yeah. Right. This is a big thing to trust me with, Kurt."

"It's the biggest thing I can give," Kurt agreed. He looked more beautiful than he ever had, and more overwhelming than he'd been since the very first time Finn saw him with the wings. His hand rested lightly on Finn's chest as he asked, "Was it all right that I asked you now? If you want, we'll do it later? I just thought because of winter, it would be nice if we could get away...."

It didn't pass Finn's notice that Kurt had phrased it that they _would_ do it later if he weren't ready now, not that they _could._ He'd clearly decided that at some point, Finn was going to own him. The timing was the only thing up for debate.

"Yeah, that makes sense," Finn said as cheerfully as he could. Kurt relaxed at his tone and smiled back. "I just need to think of what to tell Burt, okay? Mind if I get some, you know, me time?"

"Of course," Kurt said and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm so glad I finally brought this up. I've been thinking about it for weeks." He wiggled his fingers at Finn and then walked to the bathroom door. Wings framed the pale spread of his back and soft curve of his ass as he left, but for once Finn's thoughts didn't run immediately to sex.

"Please be online," he prayed as he opened his laptop and scanned for Rachel's name. "Please."

She was there. Finn typed out a desperate hello and waited. When Rachel was slow to reply, he repeated his message with exclamation points.

Rachel's profile picture smiled next to her typed reply. "Why yes, Finn. College is great. I'm so happy I picked here. Thanks for asking. How's your day been going?"

He didn't have time for this. "I really need to talk to you."

"Oh. This sounds serious. Sign onto video chat, all right?"

After realizing that she couldn't yet see his nod, Finn typed "OK" and then turned on his webcam. Rachel soon appeared in her new dorm room. "Hi, Finn. What's wrong?" She waited for him to reply, and when he didn't, she asked with clear concern, "Is it something with Kurt?"

He nodded.

The color dropped from her face. "Oh no. Did someone take him?"

"What?" Finn asked, but then realized that would be the worst-case scenario. The comparison helped tone down his concern enough to hold this conversation. "No, no. Sorry. It's not that bad, I guess."

"But it's bad," she guessed.

He nodded again. "Yeah."

"What happened? Did you fight?"

"No." He propped up his head in his hands. "Kind of the opposite of that." Upon seeing her speculative expression, he said flatly, "Stop picturing us together, Rachel."

"Sorry. Then what did happen?"

Best to just come out with it. "He wants me to get the controller from Burt, so we can go wherever we want together," Finn said all in one breath, and waited to see what she'd think.

Her hand rested lightly on her chest. "Oh," she said dreamily. "Finn, that's amazing. Do you know how much he trusts you, then? There's nothing that you or I could give to anyone that would even come close to comparing."

"Yeah," Finn said. It was hard to feel anything, and it came across in his hollow tone. "It's pretty huge."

"Why aren't you happy about this?" she asked when he didn't say anything more. "Finn, think about it. He once thought that a parent would be the only person he could trust with this, and already he's willing to give himself to you. That's enormous. That's... he's practically proposing."

"No, he's doing something way bigger." The general sentiment was true, though. Kurt had been ready to stay with Burt until the laws changed, and that could be years or even decades away. They were just eighteen, now, and he wanted to do the same with Finn? That alone was too much.

Maybe Kurt had adjusted to the idea that he was going to be in shackles for a long time, but Finn hadn't. Not enough to be happy with the idea of never being more than a mile away from Kurt. It wasn't that he didn't like being around him; he loved it. But sometimes he just wanted to drive into town without first being responsible for making sure he wouldn't leave Kurt out of range and screaming. He didn't want to be responsible for.... "It's different for Burt," Finn continued. "He's Kurt's dad. He's supposed to be responsible for him."

"I don't think you're _responsible_ for him, Finn."

"I am," Finn said. "Or I would be. Ask the police, and he'd be my pet, my thing. Anyone would look at us and assume that, you know, I make him do stuff. Hurt him." He folded his arms uncomfortably. "I don't know. Right now we're just us. We both have Burt for a dad, we're just two people, and it only feels like Kurt has some medical problem or something that makes him need to stick close."

"You're equals," Rachel provided.

"Yeah. We're equals. You know, a long time ago, Kurt and I argued about me wanting to come here. I'd screwed up and he didn't want me coming along." Finn thought about that day. It seemed like ages ago. "I can't remember exactly what I said, but it was something along the lines of wondering if he really wanted to be alone with parents for, like, ever. Wondering if he really wanted to be a kid forever."

Rachel was letting him talk, so Finn kept rambling. It helped him work through whatever he was feeling. "Parents call in to excuse kids from school, you know? Parents decide whether a kid can have an operation or not. It's not the same as this, but parents... kind of own their kids. They're used to feeling that way, looking at them that way. Right now, Burt just controls Kurt a little more than he used to."

"And you're not okay with that."

"We're not going to be equals if I own him. We can't." Finn rubbed his tense neck and wondered why something meant as such an expression of trust was actually so complicated. "If I'm his owner, we will never, ever be equals."

"Is that a dealbreaker?" Rachel quietly asked.

"I don't know," Finn said, but he changed his answer almost as soon as he'd said it. "I can't be in a relationship like that. I'd feel like those guys who buy an Angel just to have, you know...."

"Access."

Finn flinched. "Yeah."

"You know he doesn't see it that way. I'm sure he still thinks you'd be equals," Rachel tried to encourage him, but her expression soon softened. "But he wouldn't be able to convince you, would he?"

"It's all right." Wide-eyed, Finn turned around and saw Kurt pushing open the bathroom door. His smile was very sad. "Sorry. I overheard by accident, I wasn't listening. Finn, it's okay, you don't have to take me now."

God, that phrasing. "That's why I can't, you know?" Finn pleaded with him. "Because it's not just a controller, it is taking _you._ I'm eighteen. I can't be responsible for a whole other person, especially when that person gets as much attention as you do."

"Oh," Kurt said and worked through that. "I understand, I think. I suppose I didn't process how much I was asking you for. I'm just so happy that I wanted to be... even happier." He managed a bright smile and shrugged. The act was almost convincing. "Well, all right. It's not like either of us is going anywhere. Just let me know when you want to take over from Dad. I won't push."

Finn, who'd been nodding along, nearly got whiplash at the end. "What? But I just told you, I can't own you!"

Kurt's smile began to sag. "No, you said that you can't own me when you're eighteen. And I understand that, I really do. So we can wait until you're ready. Twenty-two?" he suggested. "Twenty-three? That might be the age when you would have gotten married, right? After school?"

"When I would have gotten married?" Finn repeated in a daze.

"I'm not talking about getting married, of course," Kurt quickly said. He sounded amused at the very idea. "The controller is much bigger than that. What would be the point?" He seemed to reconsider his words, like he'd overstepped, and gently offered, "I mean, unless that's something you want? I'm sorry, I didn't mean to assume. I can't do anything official anywhere, but a private ceremony...."

Finn's eyes felt ready to pop out of his head. "What?" he sputtered. "Dude, we are not getting married! And the 'not owning' wasn't just for now, it was forever! I'm not going to have sex with someone who _belongs_ to me!" It was suddenly hard to breathe. "What the hell, Kurt? We are eighteen. Eighteen! Why are you trying to make this into way more than it is all of a sudden?"

Tears stood at the edges of Kurt's eyes. Oh, damn. If he cried then Finn was _done._ "Because it's perfect. We're both so happy, or I thought we were. You're the only person I have. This is my whole life. Why wouldn't I want to...?" He didn't seem to know how to finish and trailed off, visibly in pain.

"Well, this... it's...." Frustrated, Finn raked at his hair and said, "It's not my whole life! Dude! I just graduated high school! Slow down!"

"I am slowing down," Kurt said. "I said you could decide when to own—"

"I am never going to own you, Kurt," Finn said pointedly. "Pay attention this time, 'cause you've been ignoring me before. If I own you it's because our parents _died_ , okay? And any relationship is probably going to be off the table at that point, anyway."

"But I don't...." Kurt just barely got himself under control. "Then I'm a kid, Finn, for so long as I have to stick near Dad. I want to grow up... in my heart, anyway. This, us, is all I have and I want to have it grow into as much as I can hope for."

Finn managed to bite down on his reply, but Kurt saw it anyway.

"But this isn't all you have," Kurt said. "You can go drive somewhere else. You can go date a girl and move away from here and have lots of kids, while I'll always be a kid myself."

"Not forever," Finn said awkwardly. "And I don't want to drive away. I like what we have. Don't you?"

"I do. I really do. Would it stay like this forever, though? At some point, won't you want more?" Kurt pleaded.

"God, I don't know! Didn't I just say that I'm eighteen? I don't have to think about this stuff yet! Neither do you!"

"There's not much that's good that I can think about, though," Kurt said thickly, and finally wiped at one eye. "Sorry. I guess I just... thought we were somewhere different than we are. Maybe I don't know what I'm doing. It's not like I can practice. Sorry. Forget I said anything. We don't have to talk about the controller." He tried to smile again, and left after a weak wiggle of his fingers.

Rachel had been watching the whole time, Finn realized as he turned back to the computer. "I'm sorry, Finn."

"That's okay," he sighed. "Since you saw it, maybe you can help me figure out what to do next."

"That wasn't what I was apologizing for, Finn," she said gently. "It'll take some time, but eventually... you're going to hit a rough patch. It might not work. I'm sorry."

"I don't want to break up with him," Finn said. "I just don't want to own him."

"And I understand that. But do you want to be forty years old and sneaking off to somewhere your parents won't discover? Or you could tell them everything, but you'd still be on a leash. Is that what you want?" She waited for him to shake his head, and added gently, "Then someone has to change his mind. Do you think either of you will change on this?"

"I'm going to go for a walk," Finn decided, rather than answer her question. "Thanks for talking to me, Rachel."

"Just be honest, all right? Whatever happens, whatever you are for each other, you two have a very long time together. Don't do anything you'll regret."

"Then maybe I shouldn't have told him what I felt," Finn said. Then he wouldn't have to worry at all.

"Would you really give up what you've had, though?"

"No," Finn said after an instant of thought. "No, it's been perfect." He wouldn't get rid of that time together, but he just didn't know if it could last. Something eternally perfect had sparkling eyes, soft wings, and a smile that ate right into his heart. Finn Hudson wasn't perfect. Maybe introducing him to Kurt's perfect equation had messed things up. "I guess I could own him," he said after sitting for a while without closing their chat. "I guess I could."

"Talk to him about it," Rachel encouraged. "Don't close off any avenues."

"You really want this to work out, don't you?"

"You're all he has, Finn," Rachel said.

That was true, but he didn’t know if he liked that being the reason for why things had to work.

* * *

He'd planned to go for a walk. He really had. Then Finn saw Carole doing chores around the kitchen and his resolve faded. What he'd said was true: he was only eighteen. He'd just graduated high school. No matter the law, he was still very much a kid and right then he really wanted help from his mom. "Um, hey," he nervously began as he approached her. "Mom? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, sweetie," she said as she straightened and set aside her washrag. "What is it?" They hadn't talked much ever since he and Kurt had started... whatever they had, and she seemed touched that he'd come to her.

Finn opened his mouth and couldn't find anything to say, and let himself be led to one of the barstools. He sighed and took a while to meet her eyes. "Can I talk to you about something, and you'll promise not to ask who it's about or for any more info? Because I can't really tell you."

"Okay," Carole said warily. She didn't sound thrilled about that, but she clearly just wanted Finn to talk to her.

"So, um, I kind of fell for someone. At... at school. I met h-her at school."

Carole's face betrayed nothing. "Do I know this girl?"

Oh good, she was buying it. "No. I mean, I haven't brought anyone by the house, have I?" Finn added nervously. "So you couldn't have met her."

"Of course. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Well, she's great. I've never, _ever_ been happier than I am around her. Being around her is like a bright sunny day. I just want to... I don't even know what I want," he said miserably and stared at his hands. He just wanted the moment, what they had right now, to be frozen in time like Kurt was.

Or the world could change, so Kurt didn't have to wear that collar. Or he could wake up human and... no. That wouldn't work. Then Finn wouldn't want him any more, but at least Kurt would have options, too. Finn could wake up inside a collar, he supposed. Maybe it'd work if they were both on that leash. Or maybe they could own the other's controller. Flying looked fun. That could be okay.

"It sounds like this is a good thing," Carole finally said when Finn remained miserably silent. "Why are you upset?"

"I don't know. The world sucks."

Carole paused at that apparent non sequitur, and then slowly continued, "Do... Finn, do you love this." She collected herself. "Do you love this girl?"

He'd never said it out loud. He'd never really considered it. But as soon as Carole said the words, Finn's heart ached. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I really do."

"Then what are you upset about?" she prodded again.

"She just... her life kind of sucks. I mean, it really, really sucks. I think I was supposed to have answers that I can't have, fix things that I can't fix. I'm supposed to be Prince Charming or whatever and just... wasn't the end to Snow White weird?"

"I don't follow," Carole said blankly.

"Snow White was this person with her own dreams and stuff," Finn said with growing frustration, "but then she just turned into this sleeping body. And then a prince rides by and gets to, like, keep her. That guy's creepy. Why would you think it's okay to carry off someone without asking? She's not _yours_ , dude."

Carole leaned across the counter, clasped Finn's hands in her own, and said gently, "You're not making any sense, Finn. I don't mind standing here while you work through things for yourself, but you're going to have to be a little more clear if you want my opinion on anything."

He nodded. Right. "What does Burt think about having to own Kurt?"

She blinked.

"This, uh, isn't about the girl," Finn quickly said. "I was just talking to him about it."

"I see. Well, that's a tricky question. He's glad that if anyone has to, that he can. But I know he wishes that Kurt could be free. Who wouldn't?"

Finn frowned. "Do you think any of those other Angel owners—the good ones—love their Angels? You know, _love_ them? Or are they like, 'no, this is weird, I can't, I own you?'"

There was something very soft and understanding behind Carole's eyes. "I would hope that they wouldn't try and start anything with their Angels, Finn. Because they would never know how far they really went, and whether it was too far. If you're involved with someone who literally can't get away from you, and who the world thinks is just your piece of property.... Relationships are all about giving and taking. I would be scared of being in a relationship like that, whether I was the one with the collar or not. It would be way too easy for the taking to grow out of control, and there'd be nothing they could do."

"That sounds scary," Finn agreed. He supposed he already knew that, but hearing her words helped it come together in his head.

"I'm very glad you think so, Finn," Carole said seriously. "It does my heart good to know that you wouldn't want to take advantage of someone like that."

He began to nod again and realized he was tearing up. They weren't spilling, but it was enough. He just wanted this to work, he thought as he wiped them away and centered himself. "Um. Back to the girl. What if I'm, like, the only person he has in the world? And she's pretty much said that she wants to be mine, whether it's now or in a few years?"

Carole didn't say anything and Finn felt a jolt of fear when he realized why: he'd said "he." But then she continued like it had been a simple slip of the tongue, and he sagged with relief. "This is very serious for a girl I've never met."

"Yeah, well." He rubbed at his arms. "It's kind of a weird situation."

"It certainly seems like it." She came around the counter, sat next to him, and pulled Finn's head onto her shoulder. It was awkward, but still comforted him. "It sounds like this girl is vulnerable, Finn. And like you don't want to take advantage, even as much as you love her. But you can still be there for her, you know. You could take a step back away from how she'd be 'yours,' and just be around each other."

"It's just that I'm all she has," he said quietly.

"You won't be forever." He tilted his head to look at her and Carole repeated, "You won't be forever. I promise."

"What if...." His throat was all choked up. It was hard to talk. "What if she still wants to get together once the stuff that's wrong is all fixed? Would it be okay then?"

"That would be okay," Carole agreed. "But if it's a long time, then you might change by then, remember. You might get used to not being romantically involved. You'll just have to wait and see. You haven't lived for all that long, Finn, even if it feels like it. And from the sound of it, we all have a long time ahead of us."

"Makes sense. Thanks, Mom."

She squeezed his shoulders. "Glad to help. Just to prepare myself, given what you put me through before... I don't have to worry about this girl showing up and saying that she's pregnant, do I?"

Finn managed to laugh. "Uh. No."

Even though years had already melted from her face thanks to Kurt's blood, Carole seemed very old and wise as she said, "No, I didn't think I needed to."

"I'm gonna go up to my room," Finn said.

"All right. Make sure you go to bed at a reasonable hour tonight. Burt wants you helping him settle on blueprints for the cabins tomorrow. Can't start building the first one without them, after all."

He saluted her loosely. "Will do," Finn promised before he went upstairs, ignored his door, and knocked on Kurt's. He didn't bother waiting for a reply before he walked inside. "Hey, we need to talk."

"Never a good sign," Kurt said quietly.

Finn settled on the edge of the bed next to him and looked ahead rather than at Kurt. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

He exhaled. "No. It's not. Because we can't just keep circling around this and putting it off." Finally turning to meet Kurt's eyes, Finn said with each word clear, "I will never own you. Never."

"But otherwise—"

"I will never be in a relationship where I have that much power over someone," Finn said. Now that he'd worked through it with Carole, it was easier to explain his feelings. The words felt firm, unshakeable.

"Finn, please."

"No."

"I know there would be a power imbalance. Fine. I don't care. I just." Kurt's eyes were bloodshot, and so were glowing brightly that Finn almost didn't see the tear tracks down his cheeks. "It's as good as I can get, Finn. I don't care if you could hurt me, because I know you won't."

"And I can't be in a relationship where every day depends on me not hurting you."

"Please," Kurt said. "Please. I'll do whatever you want. I know what you like by now, Finn. I'll do it. I'll do it all." He started fumbling with Finn's belt buckle, but Finn caught his hands and held them apart.

"Kurt," Finn said in growing horror. "Man, listen to yourself." Those could be the words of someone desperately trying to hold onto a love slipping through their fingers, true. But from him, in that collar, they sounded like a slave trying to placate a master after he'd been trained.

He really was all Kurt had. Maybe that should mean that he _should_ give in and go for it, but his mom's words kept coming back to him. It would be too easy to go too far and Kurt could never do anything about it. He wasn't ready for that, even if Kurt didn't have any other options.

The world _sucked._

"I know," Kurt finally said and stepped away. His head dropped. "I just... I've already learned that it hurts more if you hope. I don't know why I let myself do it."

"Because you hardly have anything," Finn said, remembering his earlier assessment of Kurt's changed behavior, "and so you really want what you do have." It sounded harsh laid out so bluntly like that, but Kurt nodded. "Kurt, I'm going to be here. We're still going to be living one room apart from each other. We can still... you know... do stuff. If you want. I want to. I just can't own you."

When he finally managed to speak, Kurt's voice was thick and tremulous. "Not a clean break, then?"

"Like I said, we've just got a bathroom between us," Finn pointed out. "Kinda hard to have a clean break when we brush our teeth next to each other." That earned the tiniest of smiles, which warmed his heart. "And hey. Like you said, winter's coming. It's going to get cold again at night."

"You still want to?" Kurt asked. Curling up together had been a simple comfort for the past months, and one that would only be more appealing during snowy nights.

"Of course I do," Finn said. "Look, I was super totally happy with what we had going before all of this."

"Sorry," Kurt said, crumpling in on himself. "I guess I ruined everything."

Ouch, he hadn’t meant to accuse him or anything. "Hey." He stood, walked to Kurt, and pulled him close. "I know why you asked. I sort of... wish I could say yes, you know? But I'm also glad I can't, because I don't want you to be with someone who would."

"So now what do we do?" Kurt asked into Finn's chest.

"I don't know. We keep going like we have been, and...."

"What happens when you want more?" Kurt looked up. God, that face. A moment of weakness swept Finn, and he almost said to ignore his protests before and that he wanted to have Kurt in every way he could. He just managed to fight back that surrender. "I wanted more. You will. And apparently I can't give it to you."

"I don't know," Finn admitted, and hugged Kurt more tightly when he flinched. "You will have someone. Okay? Someone who's awesome and great and loves you and you're totally equal with, and you'll go anywhere you want with him. And I don't know what'll happen. Maybe it'll be someone you've never seen before. Maybe it'll be me, then, when things are different. Or maybe by then, I'd be so used to... maybe I'd just want to make sure someone treats you good. I don't know."

"I thought you said it'd be someone who loves me," Kurt said. His hands were knots around Finn's shirt as he looked up. His eyelashes were beaded with tiny droplets. They gleamed in the fading light of his eyes.

Finn met that gaze for a long second, and opened his mouth.

"No," Kurt said. "Don't say it. Please. Not when...." His head dropped again and he leaned against Finn. "So we'll take what we have for now, then. Maybe someday it'll be everything, or... nothing."

"Yeah," Finn said. He rubbed Kurt's back and was careful not to come near the wings. Not right now. "Except it'd never be nothing."

"You promise?" Kurt asked, sniffling a bit.

"I moved to the middle of nowhere for you," Finn pointed out with a smile. "Had to fight you into it, too." His hand rubbed another tight circle. What he'd thought about Kurt also applied to him, he realized. Finn used to care about an awful lot of things, to a depth of about an inch or two apiece. He'd figured out what he was going to do with his life and now it felt like it was a mile deep. "If I could, I'd put on a collar. Then we'd be equals and it'd all be fine."

"That would be terrible," Kurt whispered. "But thanks for wanting it."

"No problem," Finn said. Which was a lie, of course. They were surrounded by nothing but problems. They'd give it a while, though, and see how everything worked out.


End file.
